SUKKOT Sukkah huts are part of Feast of Tabernacles

The sukkah hut allowsthose inside to see starsthrough the roof.KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
If only we could have cloned Norm Abram just before Sukkot.
That's the weeklong Jewish harvest festival, which began at sunset Wednesday, that's traditionally celebrated by spending time outdoors in a sukkah, a makeshift hut symbolizing the temporary shelters used by the ancient Israelites during their flight from Egypt.
Building such a hut would be child's play for the master carpenter. But even with a fraction of his skill, who's got the time?
No sweat, as Ron and Abby Pete of Chestnut Hill, Pa., quickly learned. They had long wanted to get more involved in Sukkot when they got a call from North Carolina relatives who were used to having a sukkah (pronounced SOOK-ah) and were coming to visit.
The Internet and their rabbi led the Petes to sukkah kits that, according to those selling them, are growing ever more popular.
"I wanted it to be easy," Abby Pete said of the $390 prefab kit she and her husband chose, which requires no tools and assembles in an hour and a half.
"If you're ready to buy [a kit], it's a no-brainer," said Ruvane Ribiat, general manager of Rosenberg Judaica & amp; Wine in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. Kits there, running about $340 to almost $1,000, may sometimes sell at the rate of a half-dozen a day in the weeks just before Sukkot, he said. Each year, more are sold.
Ribiat's best seller: Leiter's 8-by-10-foot Ease Lock Supreme ($549), "which can be assembled by someone who's all thumbs in about an hour."
At Judaism.com, owner Shlomo Perelman has noticed "a dramatic increase" in kit sales in the last five years.
"People who perhaps only experienced sukkahs through their synagogue or temple [where communal ones are often erected] now see the beauty of putting up their own," he said, "and having the observance be a way of spending quality time with the family."
Various options
The Petes' sukkah, from the Sukkah Project, is framed in lightweight steel tubing, which is slipped into corner fittings and tightened with thumbscrews. It's wrapped in a strong woven windscreen fabric.
The company also sells wood-frame kits that are far more do-it-yourself, providing only the braces, connecting hardware, and a manual specifying the lumber (that you'd buy elsewhere) plus instructions for assembly.
Kit options from other sources include pop-up sukkahs (good for traveling), sukkahs wrapped in canvas or nylon or with modular side panels, and sukkahs whose frames fit together like giant Legos.
But key to them all is that you be able to see the stars through the roof. And that it be made of once-living material, such as evergreen boughs or bamboo mats.
"To be open to the elements is part of the whole idea of a sukkah," said Neil Kerzner, a Philadelphia lawyer, who eats meals with his wife, Amy, and their son, Meir, in the sukkah they erect on the patio of their urban townhouse. "You express your trust in God that he's going to provide for your needs by moving to this rickety structure open to the sky and the rain."
Time in the sukkah
The Kerzners' sukkah came from a $500 kit purchased a few years ago from the Jerusalem Gift Shop in Northeast Philadelphia. Meir Kerzner, 6, "gets very excited by it," his father said, adding that "now he can help me put it up and take it down."
Some Jews may sleep in their sukkahs, but the Kerzners do not, although they'll entertain, relax and read out there.
Sounds like the fare at Marc Cooper's sukkah in Bala Cynwyd. There, twinkling lights (they bring out power) produce a nice glow at evening for Marc, wife Barbara Medoff-Cooper, and their two sons, one 16, the other now at college.
A project manager of facilities and real estate services at the University of Pennsylvania, Cooper initially assembled his 8-by-12-foot sukkah in six hours (now he does it in three) from a Sukkah Project wood-frame kit purchased a few years ago for between $30 and $40. ("A power screwdriver with a Phillips head bit is essential," he said.)
Family members wrap their own vinyl fabric around the sides, put evergreens or other foliage over the roof slats, and decorate it with gourds, pumpkins and squash.
In demand
Sukkah Project, which touts its "klutz-proof" kits, was founded by Steve Henry Herman, a North Carolina woodworker and psychologist who got into the business nine years ago, after his rabbi asked if he could design a kit for people who wanted a sukkah but weren't handy. The response to those initial kits plus others clamoring to get them told Herman he was onto something.
"Every year, we increase the number of supplies we order and the [array of] kits," he said, "and we're looking to sell out again." The company sells about 1,000 kits a year.
The brisk demand, Herman said, is a function of the DIY craze plus the desire "for an immediate religious experience, rather than just to sit in a shul or church."
Rabbi Saul Grife, of Beth Tikvah-B'nai Jeshurun in Erdenheim, Pa., says that those in his congregation who build sukkahs prefer not to go entirely prefab if they do choose kits.
"They want something that allows for some creativity," said Grife, who helped present sukkah-building workshops a few years ago at some area Home Depots. (None is scheduled this year, a spokeswoman said.)
Instructions also can be found online.
On the Web:The Sukkah Project, www.sukkot.com.The Sukkah Center, www.sukkah.com,.Judaism.com, www.judaism.com.Sukkah-building instructions online at http://hillel.myjewishlearning.com.