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I had gone to the doctor around sukkos time, and the doctor (who was not Jewish) said, “It must be so much fun your religion, you get to eat in a hut for a week!”
I love succos, but I do NOT love bees, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, whatever they are. If they sting, I will kill them. it happens my husband is deathly allergic to bee/wasp venom. A sting will cause him to swell up, and two will potentially put him in the hospital. So I tale great pains every year top put up bee traps all over the yard, far from the succah, and one relatively close by, just in case some decide to come close to us as we are eating. Despite my best precautions, one year two or three wasps got into the succah. As we were all panicking, I was hitting at them with a plastic plate (managed to get two of them, that were just not flying out), and my husband stayed my hand and said, “Don’t kill an insect on Yom Tov!” I glared at him, and the very next instant he was badly stung by the one he prevented me from hitting. Fortunately, we had Benadryl, so he only experienced a very swollen hand (the same one he used to stop me), and a great deal of discomfort from the sting for the rest of the day.
Lest anyone think of me as a mechallel yom tov bug-killer, I spoke to the Rov about what happened, and he told me he would have done the same thing in those circumstances. You don’t mess with allergic reactions to insects – it’s sakanas nefashos. But, you better not MISS!
My really best succah story, though, is my first succos after becoming a Bubby, and realizing I had taken over my late parents’ tafkid, especially my mom’s, who made the best stuffed cabbage and pickled fish EVER!
i went to a lumber yard in an area where frum jews are not such a common sight and asked the afro american worker if they carried any thin slats of unfinished wood x feet long and to my surprise he answered ‘oh you mean for scotch? yeah we got those! happy holiday man!
lol!
Ite me
Good story 🙂
About 10 or 15 years ago there was a hurricane in New York with terrible hard rain and strong winds (I forget if it was just before Succos, or at the beginning of it).
Most people’s sukkahs got totally blown down.
I was so proud of myself because my home-made, hand-made sukkah was still fully standing!
I went over to inspect it, and when I just barely touched it,
THE WHOLE THING COLLAPSED!
SO MUCH FOR MY GAIYVAH!
AinOhdMilvado
Good story. Do you see the mussar vort in your story? Gaivah is exactly like the Sukkah that looks firm but if you touch it it collapses. Gaivah is fake.
Oomis:
Everyone will agree that you may trap bees on YT to prevent them from stinging (tzar godol). I wouldn’t be surprised if the same reasoning was a heter to kill them on YT.
A better alternative is to not have bees in the first place. There are bug sprays that are quite effective and last for 2 months with one application. Look around in Home Depot or a similar store. They usually come in a bottle that attaches to a water hose and cost $5-10. Simply spray the ground and the area around where the succa is built. The area is kid safe once the water is dried.
I remember that hurricane, though I thought it was moer like 20-25 years ago. It was erev yom tov, and we raced home from my parents (where we were staying for succos) during the eye of the hurricane when it was sunny and pleasant, to tape our windows. My dad O”H put their wooden succah together, and it stayed up beautifully. The rain and wind did no damage at all.
The year was 1985.
On Friday, September 27, 1985 New York City was hit by Hurricane Gloria.
The Twin Towers were closed due to wind in their elevator shafts. Roads, highways, and several portions of the public transportation system were shut as well.
Many sukkas that were already put up were blown over, damaged or destroyed.
Sukkos began just two days later, on the night of Sunday, September 29.
That motzei Shabbos and Sunday my phone rang many times with people frantically looking for someone to reassemble, repair, or rebuild their sukkah before Yom Tov.
Yes, I remember it quite well.
A friend of mine once got a heter to have an exterminator come on Yom Tov to remove a bee hive that they had found because one of the family members was allergic. I don’t think this had anything to do with sukkos though, the bees were getting in the house as well
As a very young child, I remember being at a relative’s Sukka. We had all gone inside to wash for challah, and when we came out we found a large grey cat EATING our gefilte fish!!!
oomis1105, when a bee stings you, it kills itself!
Mr. wheelchair -Only bees -Bees (such as honeybees and Africanized honeybees) have a barbed stinger that becomes embedded in the skin, preventing them from stinging more than once. Other insects such as what we commonly find in the succah, such as yellow-jackets can sting more than once (repeatedly). Wasps also. Even bumble-bees can sting repeatedly!
The spray that was mentioned above by “squeak” will work for ants and other crawling bugs, but will NOT work for bees or wasps.
If YOU used it “squeak”, and did not have bees, – you must have davened well, – it was not because of the spray.
er, OK, but that’s not what the spray manufacturers claim on the can. Flying insects, shteit. And bees. Crawlies were a different can.
“oomis1105, when a bee stings you, it kills itself! “
Only if it is a bee – if it is a wasp, hornet, whatever you call those other stinging insects, they do NOT die, and can sting repeatedly. I know because my husband was attacked by a wasp that stung him four times, and he had to be rushed to the hospital. The wasp flew away. Bees die when they sting, because when their stinger becomes embedded in the skin and they try to pull out, their kishkes are pulled out, killing them immediately. I did NOT know that bumblebees coudl sting mroe than once, though.
We were blessed this year. Absolutely no bees came into our succah. And I sprayed the perimeter of the succah, as well as the table and chair legs with ant spray, to prevent them from climbing up the table. It worked great!
We just learned this year that if you put dryer sheets around the perimeter of the sukkah on the floor, the bugs will disappear from the sukkah. We tried it and it worked, just do it next year before you get bitten like crazy from the mosquitoes.
remind me that next year sister bear
Dryer sheets? That makes no sense why would they keep bugs away??
When I was a teenager, and antisemitism was for more common in the mainstream, every Succoth, someone in my home town would lodge a complaint against some poor jew in my town, that he had built a structure in his yard that did not meet building codes.
The town always took these complaints seriously, and these cases would end up in municipal court.
The judge, himself a Jew, who was as wise and funny as Judge Judy, or any of her ilk, would always lecture the poor fellow very sternly, and order him to remove the structure within a week’s time, or there would be dire consequences.
ronrsr
Thats great!
I don’t know why they would but they do, so who cares? 🙂
I also heard that daddy long legs eat mosquitoes, so if you want those around your sukkah. 🙂 even when we found one in our sukkah it didn’t help lol mosquitoes were biting!
Does anyone know what happened to the story I posted 9 years ago? It was my best Sukkah story.
My second best Sukkah story didn’t happen in a Sukkah but happened over Sukkos- I hope it’s good enough for everyone.
This story took place around the same time that the other story took place for those that read the other story and were inspired by it.
Back then after davening on Shabbos my parents used to visit residents at a nearby old age home while my siblings and I would go home to make kiddush and eat some cookies and cake.
On the first day of Sukkos, after a particularly long davening, I couldn’t wait to get home and eat something. My parents said that we’re all going to the old age home to help the residents make a Bracha on the Arba Minim and shake them. As much as I protested- I lost.
When we got to the old age home one elderly lady looked up, saw us and turned her wheelchair around so that her back was facing us. My Mom warned us that she’s anti-religious and she’s just going to yell at us to go away if we get near her so we should just stay away from her.
I was thinking that if I’m in a lousy mood I may as well put someone else in a lousy mood.
Heading straight towards her, I was about to lean over and ask her if she wanted to make a Bracha on the Arba Minim when she looked up at me and a huge smile appeared on her face.
“Would you be able to help me make a blessing on that”, she asked.
After I helped her make the Bracha and shake the Lulav and Estog she asked if I could sit down so we could talk.
She grew up in a town called Dubno (I think it’s in the Ukraine) and although she was Jewish her father was very anti-religious and would beat her or her sister if they ever asked about or observed anything that had to do with Judaism.
Early one morning she looked out the window and saw a Chassidish person walking past the house holding the strangest thing she ever saw. Tiptoeing out of the house she ran up to him and asked him what it was. After explaining it to her he offered to help her with the Bracha and she then shook the Lulav and Esrog. She then asked the man to wait a minute while she got her sister.
For the next few years, she and her sister would wake up early around Sukkos time (they didn’t know the exact date of Sukkos) and look out the window waiting for the Chassidish person. On the day that he would finally walk by the house with the Arba Minim they’d sneak out of the house- careful not to wake their father- and have the Chossid help them with the Mitzvah.
Her childhood memories of the Yidden of Dubno was fascinating to me and I spent the rest of my time there talking with her.
I’ll never forget the look my family members had on their faces when they finally found me- and even then they literally had to drag me out of the old age home.
On the way home my brother Moshe was bragging at how many seniors he helped with the Mitzvah. Then my other siblings chimed in to say how many people they helped.
“And you Avi”, my father asked, “How many people did you assist”?
With a smirk I said, “Just one…”
Wow. I hope I’ve had the zchus of helping just one person. D
id you ever see her again?Dr Pepper,
Welcome back!
Amazing story!
It sounds like one for Nachman seltzer
Dr. P: Has Congress moved April Fool’s to October?
(For the uninitiated: It wasn’t Dr. P’s story [which was wonderful] but rather his mere presence here.)
BH a bee-less 1st days!!!
Yw fan,
Probably because it’s so late in October
Syag- I never went back to that old age home so unfortunately I don’t think I ever saw her again. I was in EY for the next couple of years by Sukkos and by the time I came back my family had switched to a different shul.
Coffee addict- Do you know Nachman Selzer- would you be able to pass the story along to him?
No I don’t but you can email Hamodia
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