Cruise Into Drive-Through Sukkah
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — For those on-the-go types who prefer to travel through, rather than live in, their (very) temporary dwelling, there’s a new option: the drive-thru sukkah.
Following the lead of Miami’s Bet Shira Congregation — which in 2009 opened what is believed to be the first drive-thru sukkah — a suburban Philadelphia synagogue is this year touting its own car-friendly booth.
Har Zion Temple, which, like Bet Shira, is Conservative, is inviting motorists to stop in throughout the holiday (on yom tov as well as hol hamoed) and say the blessing over the lulav and etrog. The drive-thru is in addition to a more traditional and, er, pedestrian sukkah on the other side of the synagogue.
Gavi Miller, the shul’s executive director, told JTA that drivers are welcome to bring the lulav and etrog into their car or to step outside and do the blessing. “The idea is to reach out to people where they are,” he said.
“This is another way to make the holiday a little more accessible,” he added. “Lots of people have memories of Passover seders, Chanukah and Rosh Hashanah, but some don’t have Sukkot memories.”
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