The Panoramic Sukkah

Category: Uncategorized

  • Join the Photo Liberation Front

    Join the Photo Liberation Front

    Pigeons. Savannah. 1977.

    In one of my most vivid childhood memories, we are on a family trip to Savannah – I am ten years old – my father is yelling at me because I borrowed his camera and filled the remainder of the 35mm roll of (expensive) film – with photos of pigeons.

    Jerusalem. 1997. Deliverance.

    With its promise of nearly endless (nearly free!) photos, I was an early adopter of digital photo technology. I bought my first digital camera in 1997 – an Olympus Photo PC 550; it had no screen, no memory card, and a photo resolution of 640 X 480. It connected to the computer with a serial cable and it took 30 minutes to download a batch of pictures…it cost me $500. A few years later, when I upgraded to a camera with a memory card slot, a 256 megabyte memory card cost me $250 – that’s right, folks – nearly $1 per MEGAbyte!

    Planet Earth. 2020. Too much of a good thing…

    Today, a 12 megapixel camera is a standard feature of many smart phones – producing an image 39 times more dense than my old Olympus. 64 GIGAbytes of phone storage (with plenty more available in the cloud) is absolutely commonplace! Every day we photograph, send, and receive images of incredible richness, depth, and clarity – and view them on a screen slightly larger than a book of postage stamps (remember those?)!

    Most of us are walking around with several gigabytes of precious family memories in our back pocket, but we spend our days absorbed by a tiny screen, awash in an endless flow of mundane visual clutter.

    Where am I going with all this?

    Our smart phone allows us to snap and share a near-endless number of high-resolution images so easily – but mostly, our photos remain trapped in a tiny box!  How often do we print our photos so that we can enjoy them IRL (in real life)?

    Friends, I am determined to do my small part for the PLP – the Photo Liberation Front!  It’s time to free your photos from your phone and invite them into your Sukkah!  So without further ado, allow me to present the Panoramic Sukkah‘s newest product!

    Introducing the Custom Photo-Mosaic Sukkah Panel

    Liberate your photos from your phone and invite them into your Sukkah!  The Custom Photo-Mosaic Sukkah Panel is an opportunity to curate, print, and display your precious family memories for all to enjoy!

    Design a mosaic that reflects your experiences, your creativity, your values!  Include your children’s artwork, or your own – we’ll be happy to integrate it into your collage!

    Send us family photos from the past year, or the past 100 years – we will craft them into a photo mosaic you can enjoy in your sukkah for years to come!

  • The Panoramic Sukkah – Creative Solutions for Trying Times!

    The Panoramic Sukkah – Creative Solutions for Trying Times!

    We miss you guys too!

    Travel to Israel has been very limited since before Purim; sadly, it doesn’t seem like this will be changing any time soon.  Around the world, people are experiencing a deep longing for Eretz Yisra’el and its special kedusha and beauty.  The Panoramic Sukkah helps Jews around the world bring Israel into their sukkot in a BIG way.  When you can’t be in Israel for the chag, bring an immersive Israel experience to your family and guests with a Panoramic Sukkah – this year, in future Sukkot holidays, and any time you care to set it up!

    Why Now?

    Were you accustomed to eating your holiday meals at shul or with neighbors, extended family, or friends?  Personal health concerns as well as restrictions on large gatherings may make that impossible this year.  This is a great year to take the plunge and purchase a sukkah of your very own!  Our Panoramic Sukkah Kits are beautiful, sturdy, easy to assemble, and easy to expand!  You can even purchase reusable bamboo schach mats for a one-stop sukkah experience.

    Time to Upgrade?

    Love to host guests on Sukkot?  Need more room for social distancing?  This is the perfect year to expand, upgrade, and transform your sukkah into the ultimate Israel immersion experience!  Check out out Panoramic Sukkah Walls! 

    Do you live somewhere between Boston and Baltimore?

    Was your sukkah wrecked in last year’s Great Sukkot Nor’easter?  This is the perfect year to build it bigger, stronger, and more beautiful than ever with a Panoramic Sukkah Kit!

    Hotel for Sukkot? Not so fast, friend…

    Does your family traditionally celebrate Sukkot in a hotel?  Probably not this year….  This is a great opportunity to build your own sukkah for the very first time!  Make it a special one with our Panoramic Sukkah Kits!  Many stunning images to choose from!  Standard and custom sizes available.  Don’t miss our Erev Rosh haShana order deadline!  

    In conclusion…

    On Sukkot, we leave our homes, and move into temporary booths, demonstrating that haShem is the true source of security and stability in this world. As Jews, we believe that haShem nurtures all life with endless love, infinite wisdom, and perfect justice – even when the results are challenging for us to assimilate. Whether you will be building your own sukkah for the first time this year, or you come from a long line of dedicated booth-dwellers, this is the perfect year to invest in hidur mitzvat sukkah, and bring an extra measure of fun, surprise, and Eretz Yisra’el to your sukkot celebrations for years to come!

  • It’s Chai Elul – Happy 321st Birthday Ba’al Shem Tov!

    It’s Chai Elul – Happy 321st Birthday Ba’al Shem Tov!

    In honour of the Besht’s special day, here’s a beautiful Ba’al Shem Tov story about Sukkot.

    One Sukkot the leaders of the Medzhybizh misnagdishe community came to visit the Ba’al Shem Tov in his sukkah. In the fashion of Talmudic scholars, they examined the sukkah, they measured the sukkah, they debated the sukkah – and surprisingly, they all declared as one – not Kosher! The Ba’al Shem Tov’s sukkah does not meet the halachic requirements of a Kosher Sukkah. The Besht debated the issue with them trying to prove that his Sukkah was indeed kosher – but not even the Ba’al Shem Tov could prevail against a bunch of misnagdim who actually agreed on one halachic opinion!

    The Ba’al Shem Tov then laid his head on his arms and went into a deep meditation. A few minutes later, the holy Ba’al Shem opened his hand; he was holding a piece of parchment that stated: “The Sukkah of the Ba’al Shem Tov is Kosher.” The note was signed by the Archangel Metatron.

    Now of course the Ba’al Shem knew how to build a Sukkah that would be considered Kosher by the strictest authorities! And surely, the Ba’al Shem wanted to observe the mitzvah of leishev baSukkah in the best possible way! So why not just build a Sukkah that was impeccably kosher according to the highest possible standards?!? Why construct a sukkah that requires an excuse note from the Archangel Metatron – Chancellor of Heaven?!? What was the founder of the Chassidic movement trying to demonstrate with his just-barely-kosher sukkah?

    To my mind, the Ba’al Shem Tov built his Sukkah according to the basic halachic standard, and not to the most stringent halachic chumra in order to validate every Sukkah built with a sincere Jewish heart.

    With his good-enough Sukkah the Ba’al Shem was emphasizing the importance of Jewish inclusion over halachic stringency – the importance of Jewish unity over the all-too-Jewish temptation to one-up the Shwartzes next door with our kosherer than kosher _______________ (insert preferred Jewish noun here).

    Sukkot is the ultimate pilgrimage holiday, the chag when EVERYONE who was able, came to Yerushalayim to celebrate the harvest and party together at a week-long festival. It is on Sukkot that Am Yisrael is commanded to sacrifice seventy bulls in the temple for the welfare and well-being of all seventy nations.

    So as we pray at the end of Sukkot, may we be blessed and merit to sit in the Sukkah made of the Leviathan’s skin – a sukkah that like haShem’s love is big enough and strong enough to include and embrace everyone – chassidish and litvish, tzaddikim and apikorsim, Am Yisrael and Umot haOlam –  insert your favourite binary opposites here.

    The best part is that our Panoramic Sukkot are both Kosher and beautiful – so those never need be binary opposites again!

    If you have an insight or teaching to share, please do so below. And if anyone out there knows how to print a panorama on Leviathan skin, please be in touch.

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  • Holy Cow! Is that a Wrigley Field Sukkah?!?

    Holy Cow! Is that a Wrigley Field Sukkah?!?

    Imagine, if you will, two extremely improbable and rare events – the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series and simultaneously being in Israel and Wrigley Field. In what seemed to be a redemptive moment in history, both these events took place in October 2016. The first one, you’ve probably heard about, but the second took place in my Sukkah in Tzfat in Northern Israel.

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    I am a photographer who specializes in panoramic images of Israel.  A few years ago, I created a product called the Panoramic Sukkah – a 360-degree photo printed on fabric that forms the entire wall of a Sukkah.  Most of the Panoramic Sukkahs I produce have images of Israeli vistas on them – the Machaneh Yehudah market, the Kotel, the Negev desert, the Galilee – to name but a few.  Most of my customers are overseas, and for anyone who can’t be in Israel for Sukkot, the Panoramic Sukkah is a pretty nifty second-best.

    I, however, live in Israel, and have for about twenty years now. But I grew up in the Chicago suburbs – worshiping the Cubs, and praying for them to finally make it to the World Series. So when the Cubs made the playoffs last year, I was pretty excited!

    When it became clear that I couldn’t attend the Playoffs in person, I opted for the virtual option – to print it up as a sukkah wall! I’m pretty sure it’s the only baseball field sukkah in the world!

    Years ago, I had taken my nephew to a game and shot a panorama at Wrigley Field.  I had to dig around a bit in my archive, but baruch haShem, I found it!  So not only do I have a Wrigley Field Panoramic Sukkah, but my whole family gets a kick out of the Easter Island-sized seven-year-old-Noah-head in the corner! (He’s 24 today – full grown and sporting a beard.)

    During the historic 1984 playoffs (the first the Cubs had made since 1945), I worked at Wrigley Field as a vendor. Keeping up tradition, I served a lot of beer, peanuts, and hot dogs to my Sukkot guests.

    My big boys and I slept in the sukkah, and would wake up in the middle of the night to watch the games. They seemed to do better when we were watching, so it was a big responsibility! The last playoff game took place during Shmini Atzeret, so we had to wait until motze’ei chag to learn that the Cubs would be going on to the World Series!

    Taking inspiration from Choni haMe’agel, a local first century BCE sage famous for drawing a circle on the ground during a severe drought and refusing to step out of it until haShem sent rains, I decided to leave the Wrigley Field sukkah set up until the Cubs won the World Series.

    No Etrogim were harmed producing this image.

    Sukkot begins tomorrow evening, and the Cubs play their first post-season game against the Washington Nationals on Saturday at 2:30 AM Israel time – so we plan to watch the game on Saturday night! I’m looking forward to serving beer, cheering the Cubs through another World Series, and figuring out how to explain my kids’ school lateness to their Israeli school teachers