“Why do we always make a paper chain to decorate our Sukkah?”
Sarah was an inquisitive and precocious nine years old. She was always drawing, painting, questioning, and singing. The arts were her best mode of expression. She liked soccer, too. And baseball. Somehow, though, as Sukkot was coming once again, she was thinking about how to make this year’s paper chain for the Sukkah even longer than last year.
She always joined in on the fun. In her small Temple, even when there were only 20 students in her Religious School, there was a friendly competition between one group of children and another. Once they all had completed their work of carefully curling the paper segments and stapling or taping them together, admiring their miraculous work, they would join their separate chains together. What had been a series of long chains became one mega-mega chain. Before they attached it to the Sukkah, they extended it to its fullest length. The rabbi and some of the parents would stand by, snapping pictures of the children brimming with pride at their work.
Sarah asked her parents why they thought this “paper-chain Sukkah decoration” was so popular. They told her that they remembered doing this themselves “back in the day.” It was fun, and no one had told them why they did the activity, other than that it was easy to prepare, it took time, and it occupied the students for a while. And, of course, the result was always impressive.
So Sarah decided to ask the rabbi what the paper chain meant.
The day came for putting up the Sukkah and making decorations. She found the rabbi in his office before the program began, preparing for the service in the Sukkah later that afternoon.
“Rabbi, we always make paper chains to put on the Sukkah. Why do we do it? I know that it adds some color, and that it is a fun thing to do. There has to be some other reason to make the chain.”
The rabbi had never been asked the question before. He had, for many years, in several different congregations, watched the students in the Temple Religious School create construction paper-strip chains of 30 feet, 50 feet, 70 feet. He realized that he hadn’t thought about a deeper purpose...that is, not until now.
“Sarah, that is an excellent question. No one has ever put that question to me. I suppose it is because it is easy to set up and you all have so much fun doing it. You are so excited when you are finished, and you hang the chain on the Sukkah with incredible enthusiasm! You know, the chain doesn’t always make it through the whole week of Sukkot, due to wind and rain. It always looks great, though, on the first day.”
“So here is what I think. Do you you remember, Sarah, when we took out the miniature Torah and unrolled it last year during our school assembly before Simchat Torah?”
“Yes, I do!” Sarah said. “You pointed out some of the special sections on the scroll, like the Shema, the special blessing of the priests, the Ten Commandments, the song the Israelites sang after crossing the sea, the dream of Jacob, and the story of creation. That was great. So what does that have to do with a paper chain?”
“Sarah, sometimes I talk at services when a boy or girl becomes Bar or Bat Mitzvah about a chain of the Jewish people and our tradition,” the rabbi explained.” Each link in the paper chain can represent a generation in your family history, or maybe special people that you recall. The chain can signify your own personal story going back for centuries. It’s the same when we open up the Torah. We usually just read a little bit of the Torah every week. When we open up the Torah on Simchat Torah, and see it all at once, we realize that we are part of an amazing tale of teaching, learning and survival. It is like the paper chain, demonstrating every point in a ever-growing story. The blessing we say on holidays and at special times thanks God for keeping us alive, for sustaining, and bringing us to special times. Each time we say that blessing, it’s like a link in the chain. Do you have anyone special that you think about from your family history, Sarah, someone whom you never met but about whom you have heard stories?”
“Rabbi, I heard that my great-grandmother Surah - I was named for her - came to this country all alone on a boat nearly 100 years ago. She was only 15. She did have an aunt and uncle waiting for her when she arrived, but I can’t imagine how she made that trip. She must have been so brave. The rest of her family - two sisters, a brother, and her parents - joined her, too. It is because of her that we are here. You know, we even have a photo of her with her son and daughter-in-law - my grandparents - and her oldest grandchild - my mother - at the synagogue Sukkah.”
“See, Sarah, that photo you just described to me is also one link in the chain of your family story and in our ever-unfolding Jewish history. Our stories make each of us special. So, are you ready to make a new chain this year?”
“Yes, rabbi, am I ever!” Sarah exclaimed.
She joined the other children and got to work on making the longest paper-chain Sukkah decoration ever created.
This time, she added something new. She took one paper strip, found the nearest marker, and wrote the name “Surah.”
And she said to herself, “I am still here, great-grandma. This one is for you.”
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