This year I started my preparations for Sukkos early. During Aseres Yemei Teshuvah I started building our small sukkah, in order to perform the mitzvah of sukkah calmly and with joy.
I went with the children to the porch one afternoon and put up the boards with their help, as I told them to hold here and there, strengthen one side and staple down the other... We worked energetically, happily, pleasantly, and we were deeply immersed in the task when the clock showed that it was 3:20.
At 3:30 my afternoon kollel starts, and in order not to be late, I would have to stop immediately.
I was really heavily engaged in the work, and some voice in my heart told me it was not so terrible for me to come a bit late. We would just finish banging in a few more nails, and the entire sukkah would be standing beautifully.
My inner battle didn’t last long, and I told my children that we had to stop. We’d continue in the evening or the next day. “Go into the house!” I told them.
They went into the house, and two minutes later we heard a loud, frightening noise. A large, heavy board rolled from the porch above ours onto our porch, and it fell straight onto the floor of our sukkah, in the exact place where all of us had been standing a mere two minutes earlier!
Baruch Hashem, no one was harmed, in the merit of my hakpadah on the times set aside for Torah learning.
