A Succah Opens Santa Fe’s Plaza to Everyone
Each autumn, Jewish communities around the world build temporary shelters for Sukkot, the harvest festival. In Santa Fe, that ancient practice took a distinctly public form when a local Chabad rabbi raised a succah on the Plaza, placing Jewish ritual in the centre of the city’s civic and cultural life.
The structure was modest in scale, yet it carried a large message. A succah is deliberately fragile: its walls provide shelter, while its roof of branches, known as s’chach, leaves enough openings to see the sky. For one week, it asks people to exchange permanence for presence, comfort for gratitude, and private observance for shared hospitality.
On Santa Fe’s historic Plaza, the festival shelter became a meeting point for residents, visitors, Jewish families and curious passers-by. The rabbi’s work connected Chabad’s tradition of welcoming every Jew with the public character of one of New Mexico’s best-known gathering places.
A Temporary Home In A Historic Setting
The Santa Fe Plaza has served as a crossroads for centuries. It is surrounded by adobe buildings, galleries, shops, restaurants and museums, and it remains a place where civic ceremonies, markets and informal encounters take place. Building a succah there allowed an ancient Jewish custom to enter a setting already associated with public gathering.
A Chabad rabbi typically approaches Sukkot with an open-door spirit. The mitzvah of dwelling in a succah can include eating a meal, reciting blessings, shaking the lulav and etrog, or simply stepping inside to learn what the festival means. A public succah makes those possibilities visible to people who may never have entered a synagogue.
The shelter also reflected Santa Fe’s visual language. Its natural materials and open construction sat comfortably beside the Plaza’s earthy colours and traditional architecture. It did not attempt to imitate a permanent building. Its temporary character was the point: a reminder that community can be built through welcome rather than walls.
Why The Plaza Became The Right Address
Sukkot is sometimes called Zman Simchateinu, the season of our rejoicing. Its joy is active and social. Families eat outdoors, guests are invited in, and the festival encourages Jews to recognise both the vulnerability and abundance of daily life. In a private backyard, those ideas can remain intimate. In a central plaza, they become part of a wider civic conversation.
The location also gave the rabbi an opportunity to explain Jewish life without reducing it to a display. Visitors could ask why the roof was made from branches, why the shelter was temporary, or why people were holding a lulav and etrog. These simple questions opened a path to conversations about the Exodus, the agricultural calendar, hospitality and Jewish continuity.
For Australian readers, the seasonal setting is worth noting. Sukkot arrives in spring in Australia, rather than autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. In Melbourne, a family might be eating in a succah while keeping an eye on sudden rain and cold wind; in Sydney, the celebration may feel more naturally suited to outdoor gatherings; in Brisbane, heat and humidity can shape the practical design. The festival’s meaning travels well, even when the weather does not.
What The Succah Communicated
The Plaza succah brought several ideas together in a form that visitors could see and enter.
| Element | Jewish Meaning | Public Experience |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary walls | Human life is vulnerable and changeable | A structure that feels welcoming rather than permanent |
| Open roof | Trust, remembrance and awareness of the natural world | A view of the Santa Fe sky |
| Shared meals | Hospitality and joy during Sukkot | A chance to meet people across backgrounds |
| Lulav and etrog | A ritual connected with the harvest and Jewish tradition | A tactile introduction to a familiar festival symbol |
| Public location | Jewish practice belongs in everyday communal life | A visible Jewish presence on the Plaza |
The rabbi’s decision to build in public also challenged a narrow idea of religious observance. Jewish ritual does not exist only behind synagogue doors or inside family homes. It can appear in a market, a park, a university, a community centre or a city square, provided it is offered with care and respect.
The succah’s openness mattered as much as its walls. People did not need to arrive with prior knowledge, belong to a congregation or understand Hebrew. A greeting, a brief explanation and a shared moment under the branches could be enough to make the festival accessible.
Hospitality Under The New Mexico Sky
A public succah depends on practical preparation. The rabbi and volunteers had to consider the structure’s stability, the materials used for the roof, safe access and the flow of pedestrians around it. The build itself was part of the teaching. People could see that Jewish festivals involve hands-on work, planning and cooperation.
Food often gives Sukkot its warmest expression. A snack or small gathering beneath the s’chach turns an architectural object into a lived ritual. For visitors, the experience may have been as simple as stepping inside and hearing a blessing. For Jewish families, it offered a chance to carry out a familiar practice in an unusual setting.
The atmosphere would be recognisable to anyone who has attended a community festival in Australia, from a Melbourne Jewish school event to a Sydney communal barbecue. It has the same mixture of formal tradition and informal conversation, with children moving between adults, volunteers explaining customs and newcomers finding an easy way to participate.
Small Details That Made The Space Welcoming
- Clear explanations of the succah’s roof, walls and purpose
- Room for visitors to enter without interrupting a prayer or meal
- Opportunities to see or hold the lulav and etrog
- A friendly welcome for Jewish and non-Jewish guests
A public festival shelter also benefits from local rhythms. Santa Fe’s galleries and shops bring a steady stream of visitors, while the Plaza’s events and markets create a natural audience. In Australia, a similar project might sit beside a community farmers market, a council-run cultural program or a Jewish festival stall rather than in a synagogue courtyard.
What Visitors Could Take Away
- Sukkot connects Jewish history with the agricultural cycle
- A temporary structure can express resilience and gratitude
- Public ritual can strengthen understanding between communities
- Hospitality is a central Jewish value, not an afterthought
A Jewish Presence In A Shared Civic Space
The succah represented a form of Jewish visibility that was confident without being confrontational. At a time when Jewish communities everywhere are thinking carefully about safety and public identity, the Plaza gathering showed how religious presence can be both recognisable and generous.
That balance is significant. Jewish communities in New Mexico include congregations, schools, cultural groups and families with different levels of observance. Chabad’s outreach model often meets people where they are, offering a connection to Jewish practice without requiring a particular affiliation. The Plaza succah embodied that approach by making room for many kinds of participation.
It also created space for interfaith understanding. A visitor from a Christian, Muslim, Indigenous or secular background could encounter Sukkot through a conversation rather than through an abstract description. Santa Fe’s long history of cultural exchange made the Plaza a fitting place for that encounter, while the festival’s themes of shelter and welcome had broad human resonance.
The public setting did not erase the specifically Jewish meaning of the ritual. Instead, it allowed that meaning to be shared on its own terms. The succah remained a Jewish home for the festival, even as it welcomed neighbours who came to learn.
From One Week On The Plaza To A Lasting Memory
When Sukkot ends, the succah comes down. That disappearance is part of its lesson. Jewish tradition does not ask people to pretend that temporary things are permanent. It asks them to value the shelter, the meal and the company while they are present.
For the Santa Fe rabbi, the project offered a practical way to bring Jewish life into view. The achievement was not measured only by how many people entered the structure. It could also be found in the questions asked, the stories exchanged and the recognition that a Jewish festival had a place in the shared life of the city.
The idea travels easily across distance. A succah in Santa Fe and a succah in Sydney may face different weather, use different local materials and serve communities with distinct histories. Both can create a small interruption in the ordinary day, inviting people to pause beneath an open roof and consider what makes a home.
The next step is simple: visit a local Jewish community centre or congregation during Sukkot and spend a few minutes inside its succah.