Bwog, with all its Jewish grandmotherly wisdom, guided you through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Now grab your etrogs, kids: it’s Sukkot!

Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is kind of like the Jewish version of Thanksgiving, but longer… and in huts. An eight-day-long harvest festival, this holiday recalls the 40 years when Moses and the ancient Israelites wandered through the desert before reaching the Promised Land. Jews eat in the sukkah (“booth”) to commemorate the Israelites’ make-shift shelters. Check out these avant-garde holiday huts from New York’s annual Sukkah City design competition in Union Square.

Yesterday, a Chabadnik (from our very own Columbia Chabad House on 625 W
113th St!) was chilling outside the bookstore. These members of the Hasidic movement, Chabad-Lubavitch, aren’t out to convert you—just to tell you about fun Jew things. Anywho, he was holding a lulav, a long palm branch, and an etrog, a lemon-like fruit. Waving the lulav and etrog—the Four Species—is a mitzvah specified by the Torah. Plus, etrogs smell nice.

On Yom Kippur, Bwog challenged you to get invited to a break fast dinner. Before Sukkot ends, eat dinner in a sukkah. Bwog’s friend counted eleven of them throughout Columbia University.

Our friends at Chabad encourage you to join them for Simchat Torah, the end of the festival, on Thursday night. This will involve dancing all night long with ancient Torah scrolls in hand!

Update, 6:15 p.m.: Cart chaser Conor Skelding spotted this Sukkot Cart trundling about campus this evening.

Photo by Conor Skelding

• Morningside may get a historic district, so watch out for higher real estate values and lots of older people looking pensive. (Spectator)
• Choreographer Luca (not Luka) Veggetti finds a home for his ballet Maa this season at Miller. (Capital)
• Don’t you wish your permanent shelter could look this trendy Tishrei through Elul? (Curbed)
• Gov. Paterson vetoes HIV/AIDS rent protection bill; goes home, sleeps at night (NY Daily News)
• They’re climbin’ in your escrow, they’re payin’ all your closing costs. (US Magazine)

Photo courtesy of James Thompson’s Flickr

Queens seizes the chance to tear down a Great White Oak older than Columbus before tree-hugging hipsters make Astoria the new Williamsburg (NYT). 

The football team learns to protect their balls (Spec). 

New York Senators side with Obama and want Bloomberg out (NY1). 

Empty pockets force Columbia to abandon its dreams of conquering Morningside (Spec).

Yarmulkes come back in style as Bryant Park replaces the Fashion Week tents with a Sukkah (CityRoom). 

 Yankee Stadium hosts an open Victoria’s Secret casting call, teenage boys everywhere declare it the Happiest Place on Earth (HuffPo).

Gayava (helpfully spelled out as “The Columbia Barnard LGBTQ and Allies! Jewish Student Group”) will be having cupcakes from Magnolia bakery (frankly overrated in Bwog’s opinion), hot apple cider, and…

Hookah!

Best of all, it’s all out in the open air under a legitimate Sukkah.

Head over to the Kraft Center (115th bet. Broadway and Riverside) on the 3rd floor terrace RIGHT NOW from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM.

If you run to College Walk right now, you might still be able to get in on the Sugar Cube Sukkahs from Hillel. You can glue your own miniature sukkah together or just eat the sugar cubes. Or eat the glue with the sugar cubes, I suppose. That’s something to consider.

Rabbi Yonah Blum commands it!