Get your peanuts, Cracker Jack and sukkah at this World Series

NEW YORK, Oct. 21 (JTA) – There was something new to go along with the traditional peanuts and Cracker Jack at this year’s World Series – a sukkah. The sukkah mobile, a portable sukkah perched atop a U-Haul truck, greeted baseball fans as they arrived at Pro Player Stadium in Miami, home to the Marlins, before Game 2 of the Series. The sukkah, with Jewish music playing from loudspeakers and signs welcoming fans to the “official sukkah” of the World Series and cheering “Go Marlins,” was sponsored by Chabad of South Broward, Fla. This was the first time that a sukkah mobile, which Lubavitch started in the 1970s to allow people to observe the mitzvot, or commandments, of Sukkot, was at a World Series. Chabad of Cleveland was set to park its own sukkah mobile in front of Jacobs Field on Tuesday for game three. Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus, the executive vice president of Chabad of South Broward, said he picked the World Series as a place to park the sukkah mobile because the jovial mood of the crowds matched the mood of the Sukkot holiday, which is also called the time of happiness. He also compared the unity of fans rooting for the Marlins to the unity of Jews when they gather in a sukkah. Ten yeshiva students served as hosts. They showed people how to use a lulav and etrog, the palm branch and citrus fruit that are shaken after reciting a blessing on Sukkot. Refreshments were provided to help people fulfill the mitzvah of eating in the sukkah. More than 500 hundred baseball fans took advantage of the sukkah, Tennenhaus said in a phone interview. For some, it was the first time they had held a lulav and etrog. People had “to go to the World Series to fulfill the mitzvah of lulav and etrog,” Tennenhaus said.