I don’t think we were conscious of how little time we spent with our father

IT

was always a careful thing, helping my father build the succah when I was young.

Climb up the ladder, tentative and slow.

Hold the hammer as Abba grips the nail.

Bang it gently, sure I’m going to hit his big fingers instead of that tiny nail.

Finish, pleased and proud, sure the succah was as good as built now that I’d had a part in building it.

Abba used to put me in charge of jobs like organizing the nuts and butterflies, picking them out of a mass of screws, and putting each one into the proper compartment. My husband does the same thing with my son now, and I realize it was probably just a way to keep an over-eager eight-year-old busy while he’d build the succah. But back then, I thought of myself as a vital part of the construction process.

Succos was a precious gift to us kids. My father is the rav of a kehillah and a lawyer, and his free time has always been limited. When we were younger, he’d come home from work at dinnertime to visit, then go to his “other home,” the shul two houses away, where he’d learn and give shiurim and have meetings. On Shabbos, we’d have our meals together and learn Navi for a little while until he’d return to shul.