Brooklyn 1971.

A young man looks forward to Succos.

Although he attends yeshivah his family has no succah of their own. In the early 1970s there were many frum Jews who did not “yet” have their own succah.

People made due with the shul’s succah. The young man and his family were one of those families.

The young man asks his parents if this year they could have their own succah. His parents tell him they can’t afford one.

It’s the Shabbos before Succos. On Motzaei Shabbos with less than 24 hours before Succos the young man sits silently dreaming about a succah to call his own.

Suddenly his parents tell him “Friends just called. They have the frame of their old succah and you can have it.”

The next morning he jumps into the family’s ’63 Oldsmobile Cutlass to pick up a collection of two-by-fours. Then he and his “two left hands” begin to clumsily bang a nail here and there. Just then his secular Israeli neighbor Yossi walks by. Yossi asks “What are you doing?”

“Building a succah.”

Yossi runs home and comes back with a proper hammer and saw. “At the rate you’re going you’ll finish by Pesach” he says. “Let me give you a hand.” And for the first time in the history of East 82^nd Street in Canarsie the sounds of succah building are heard.

At noon Lenny Waldman another “not-yet” frum Jew walks by. “What’re you guys doing?”

“Building a succah.”

“Where’s the roof?”

Our young man says “We’ll think of something. It needs to be something that grows.”

Lenny disappears into his house. A few moments later he’s back with a large pair of shears and begins to cut large swathes from the evergreen in his yard. “I always wondered why I let it get so big.”

Henry Gordon the cab driver sees Lenny cutting his tree. “What you doing?” he asks Lenny. “This guy is building a succah” Lenny tells him.

Henry comes over to look and asks “Where are the walls?”

The young man answers “I’ll just grab some old sheets and tack them to the frame.”

“I have an idea; I’ll be back soon.”

Ten minutes later he reappears pushing a wheelbarrow full of doors. “Whenever I’m driving and I see an old door I toss it in the trunk. I’ve been doing it for years. Let me donate them as the walls for your succah.”

Murray Cohen who refers to himself as a “non-practicing Kohein” was the last neighbor to meander across the street. “Whatcha all doing? Looks like a succah. I’ve never seen one of those around Canarsie. Hang on I have something for you.”

Murrayreturns with a large sheet of green felt. “I fix pool tables for a living and they often give me the old felt. Let’s staple it to the doors. It’ll give the succah a real homey feeling.”

That night the first night of Yom Tov there’s a knock on the succah door.

In walks Lenny. “Looks pretty cozy in here.”

Soon Henry appears to admire his handiwork followed by Yossi and Murray.

As our young man recites Kiddush he almost feels he has no need to invite the Ushpizin because he has no doubt that all the Ushpizin are already present proudly standing together with Yossi Lenny Murray and Henry.

Many years have passed since that Succos. That young man is no longer young and now has a large succah connected to his home which gets built way before Yom Tov and then fills up with family and friends.

But every year as I recite Kiddush on Succos I pine for my succah of 1971 — the most beautiful and precious succah I will ever be privileged to enter.