A faculty member visited our Sukkah for lunch on the second day and shared a memory from Sukkot in Ireland during the year she was on a recent research sabbatical there. She and her family rented a place on the northern side of Dublin which was close to the University and her work while the Jewish community lived almost all on the southern side of the city. Her husband would walk (mostly jog or run) seven miles to the synagogue and back on Shabbat!

They were there for Sukkot and really wanted to have a Sukkah. Their available space was limited, so she and her husband designed (her father was an engineer and had designed a number of Sukkot for others, though he never built one of his own) a small PVC plastic pipe Sukkah with a big ball of string/rope which they twisted around the pipe to create Sukkah walls. The nearest building supply store was three miles away, so he brought the smaller pieces of pipe over to their apartment by bus, but he carried the larger pipe segment by foot – for a 3 miles distance!

After all that effort they didn’t want their temporary Sukkah to go to waste, but Rabbi Zalman Lent of the synagogue said he would store the collapsed parts for another visiting family that may want to use it in the future.

Such is the dedication for a Mitzvah!