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By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal
 SAN DIEGO--A couple of weeks ago I was invited by Hillel at UCSD to teach a gathering of students in their campus Sukkah. I was delighted to accept and met with about 15 students last Wednesday for lunch. It brought back memories of my UCSD days. I remember borrowing a truck and following city workers through the streets of Kensington as they trimmed the palm trees. I and a friend gathered the fronds to top the Sukkah we were building on campus.
What neither I nor the Hillel students knew was that we would have a little competition during our study session. The Sukkah stands on "Sun God Lawn." Sun God Lawn is a central gathering place for students. This consideration overrides the concern of celebrating a Jewish holiday in the presence of avodah zarah (the Sun God - a "pagan" idol)!
As we gathered in the Sukkah to study, a campus fraternity (which were nonexistent in my UCSD years) had set up near by. They were hosting an activity which consisted of a barbecue,
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trampoline, and loud rap and hip hop music! We tried valiantly to compete but eventually had to move out of the Sukkah to quieter ground.
At the time, the loud music was an annoyance but in retrospect it helped me better understand the importance of the holiday of Sukkot. Sukkot is a holiday which serves as a counterpoint to technology. We spend most of our days indoors surrounded by "labor saving" devices which often add more labor to our lives. We are constantly bombarded by loud sounds and noisy images. We are always on the rush and on the go. We never seem to be able to slow down and take the time to meditate, reflect, and appreciate.
The Sukkah reminds us that, in our haste to accomplish and accumulate, we sometimes forget to savor the beauty of the natural world and the simple pleasures of life. There is something stunningly refreshing about sitting beneath the roof of green palm branches, admiring the decorations on the wall, and enjoying the fresh air and sunlight without doing anything else.
The students and I were disappointed when we had to move out of the Sukkah in order to escape the fraternity's event next door. But in the end, their noise and ruckus helped remind us why we celebrate Sukkot to begin with.
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