Last week, 70 families – including 22 children – participated in the first Sukkah Trolley Hop on the North Shore.
The Sukkah hop began at the Epstein Hillel School in Marblehead, where students and families sat in the school’s sukkah and made miniature edible sukkahs out of graham crackers and sour candy.
The next stop was at Congregation Shirat Hayam in Swampscott, where Cantor Sarah Freudenberger led a story about the mitzvah of having guests in the sukkah, and also led the group in song on her ukulele. In the temple’s sukkah, participants also had apples and honey.
At Chabad of the North Shore in Swampscott, Rabbi Sruli Baron led the guests in performing the mitzvah of shaking the lulav and etrog, and also explained the mitzvah of eating in the sukkah. Dinner included lentil soup, butternut squash soup, hot dogs, broccoli salad, and apple cider, and donuts and watermelon for desert.
“I think the main point of the Trolley Hop was to bring the community together,” said Hela Nathan, Chabad of the North Shore’s program director who helped organized the event. She said it was important to bring Jews together who have different backgrounds. “Sukkot is about bringing all Jews together. That’s the point of the lulav and etrog – we’re all on different ways of practicing, but we all come together as Jewish people as one,” she said.