Today is the last day of Sukkot, the Jewish holiday sometimes called the Feast of Booths. With a name like that, you'd think that it should be celebrated by all piling into a diner, three on a side at a small table with bench seating. But instead it's quite the opposite.
Jews tend to celebrate Sukkot by shaking lulav branches and spending time in booths called Sukkahs with partial roofs. Which, if you've been living in North Adams instead of Israel for the past month, is likely to get you somewhat wet.
Anyway, the point is that Sukkot is not an easy holiday to celebrate, especially because it doesn't have any songs. Part of this may be because "Sukkot" is not a very easy word to rhyme. But I think we could easily repurpose an old song to serve as a celebration of Sukkot:
(To the tune of "Don't You Want Somebody To Love")
When the roof is found to be skies,
And your sukkah needs more supplies,
Don't you want some sort of Lulav;
Don't you need some sort of Lulav;
Wouldn't you love some sort of Lulav;
You better find some sort of Lulav
Now, naturally, Sukkot is not the only undercelebrated holiday here in this country. Ramadan ended just a few weeks ago and is a month of fasting and prayer for observant Muslims. They may call it fasting, but I assure you, if you do not eat any food from dawn until sunset, that month actually goes quite slowly. Perhaps if there were a song that celebrated
(To the tune of "Who Put the Bomp")
I'd like to thank the guy who wrote the song
that made my baby fall in love with Eid...
Who put the sawm in the Sawm-a-Sawm-a-Sawm?
Who put the ram in the Ramadan-a-ding-dong?
Who put the wal in the wal-Shawwal-Shawwal?
Who put the ghrib in the ghrib-Maghrib-Maghrib?
Who is that man, who gave us the Koran?
He made my baby fall in love with Eid (yeah!)
When my baby heard Ramadan-sawm-a-sawm-a-sawm-sawm,
Every word just made our love complete.
And when she heard them singing Ramadan-a-Ramadan-a-lama-ding-dong,
She said we'd never have to eat.
Of course, it would be unfair to cover only two of the three major religions. Yes, most Christian holidays are widely known and celebrated with much song and fanfare. But five months from now, observant Christians will give up various things for the duration of these 40ish days. Unlike Christmas, this holiday has rarely been celebrated in popular song, until now:
(To the tune of "Rent")
How do you get enough protein
When the church ban on eating meat
Is lasting all day?
Tofu's no food,
It is true,
And then they tell you,
"Keep fasting and pray."
Lent!
How do you now abstain
When you are in pain,
Though you once got to chew the fat
Of some tender pork chop
But now has your fork stopped?
You can't have much to do with that,
And we're hungry and thinking
Why'd I give up drinking.
How we gonna pray?
How we gonna pray?
How we gonna pray?
That's for Lent!
Some of you are probably thinking, "That's a lot of song for Lent, when the Sukkot song was so short." Well, OK. Here's one last song about another Jewish holiday, Passover:
(To the tune of "Cheek to Cheek")
Leaven, don't eat leaven!
Otherwise God's anger may just be released,
But this matzoh really ain't much of a feast,
So your joy in eating dinner is decreased.
Leaven, don't eat leaven!
All consumption of the bread now must be ceased,
And you don't enjoy your dinners in the least,
When you're eating bread that's made without the yeast.
Seth Brown is the author of "Rhode Island Curiosities," the creator of GodToVerse.com, and still remembers singing "Feliz Kwanzaadad" in high school. His column appears weekly in the Transcript and weakly on his Web site, www.RisingPun.com.
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