Another Good Reason to Make Aliyah: If You Build...
Another Good Reason to Make Aliyah: If You Build...

Once again we read the Torah portion of Noah and the flood. Inevitably it reminds me of Bill Cosby's famous comedy routine.

"I just wondering," Cosby muses. "What would be the effect of an ark on the average neighbor? Now, here's a guy, Noah's next door neighbor, going to work at 7 o'clock in the morning, and he sees the ark.

Hey! You up there!

What do you want?

What is this?

It's an ark!

Aha..You wanna get it outta' my driveway?"

I've also heard the more contemporary jokes explaining how in this day and age Noah would never be able to secure the building permits, EPA approvals, and petitions from animal rights activists, etc. to get his Ark built, let alone fill it with animals.

But this year, a dear family friend , Abe Berman, from my hometown of Palo Alto, California, was the subject of an article in his local paper because his tradition of building a sukkah in the common area of his apartment complex became the center of a religious debate.

According to Jweekly.com, Abraham (Abe) Berman, 81, who lives with his wife, Sylvia, 80, in the Sheridan Apartments, has erected a homemade sukkah on the complex’s second-floor patio every Sukkot for the past 11 years. This year, the Palo Alto Housing Corporation, a nonprofit that manages 20 affordable-housing properties, informed Berman that he would no longer be permitted to build the structure, as part of a prohibition against personal property in common areas.

When Berman countered that the complex often has other “personal” decorations and religious symbols in common areas — such as a Christmas tree on the ground floor — housing officials informed him that the tree will be scrapped this year, as well, presumably at all 20 properties.

After erecting last year’s sukkah, Berman received a letter informing him of the rules. He tried to educate the property managers about Sukkot, the weeklong harvest festival, sending them photos of sukkahs erected in public areas, such as one at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

“I do this to present good will toward the world, and as far as I know everyone enjoyed it,” Berman said on Oct. 11, one day before the start of Sukkot. “I would say, Come in, have coffee, share something to eat. It wasn’t interfering with anything.” He added that he had no plans to defy the regulations.

But Berman said he was dismayed that the dispute might be morphing into a debate about public displays of one’s religion. “I don’t want this to be a situation where they use my sukkah to deny someone else their religious practices,” he said.

The director of property management for the complex told the local paper that the previous building manager at the complex had been remiss in allowing the structure to go up year after year, and that manager was replaced earlier this year.

“The issue is that residents are not allowed to put up anything personal in the common area,” she told the newspaper. “Whatever they do within their apartments is fine and we certainly don’t question that at all.”

"I'm not here to disturb anybody or to violate any rules," Berman said. "I'm just trying to create a 'house of peace' — that's all I want to do."

The story is reminiscent of the children's book, The House on the Roof: a Sukkot story by David Adler, based on a New York joke. Despite the protests of his landlady, an old man builds a sukkah for himself and his grandchildren on the roof of an apartment building. In the end (spoiler alert) the case goes to court and the judge rules that the old man has 10 days to take down the Sukkah.

The old man is pleased as 10 days is more than enough time for the Sukkah to stand and be dismantled right after the weeklong holiday.

As for Noah's neighbor in Cosby's bit, well, tradition says the building of the Ark took up to 120 years, which is an awful lot of time to be blocking your neighbor's driveway. Noah was commanded to build the ark so that people would change their evil ways, but that didn't happen.

One the one hand, maybe it would have been good if people had protested the building of the ark. Maybe they would have realized the error of their ways and the flood could have been averted.

On the other hand, since nobody objected and the ark was built, maybe we should be thankful the ark existed. Would any of us be around today if the ark hadn't provided protection from the flood for Noah, his family and the animals?

As for my dear friends the Bermans, I hope their issue gets settled so next year Abe will be able to build his sukkah in Palo Alto. I am just glad that I live in Israel, where not only does my landlord let me put up a sukkah, he builds one himself as well!