Before Sunday there were only flowers and grass between Grise and McLean Halls.

Now there is a sukkah, or a temporary dwelling, that has been built to celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which began yesterday at sundown.

Sukkot, which is Hebrew for “booths” or “tabernacles,” is a harvest festival, and it commemorates the time after Moses and the children of Israel left Egypt and wandered in the desert for 40 years.

Bryan Carson, the faculty adviser for the Jewish Student Organization, said building sukkahs is an important tradition because it reminds people what it was like for the Israelites to be refugees.

Carson said the Israelites’ plight was not all that dissimilar from the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

“This year with the hurricane and all its evacuees it makes the holiday, unfortunately, even more relevant,” he said.

The sukkah construction was organized by the JSO and religious studies instructor Shannon Schaffer’s Judaic Religious Traditions class.

Carson said Schaffer asked him this summer if he had any ideas for a hands-on learning project for his class. Carson said he couldn’t think of anything at first but later decided it might be interesting to build a sukkah.

Schaffer said she got two lumber companies to donate wood and a family to give them bamboo. She also talked the Department of Religious Studies into buying a kit to build the sukkah’s frame.

JSO Vice-President Cory Attig, a senior from Clearwater, Fla., said he is glad to have received help from Schaffer’s students. Because Western’s Jewish population isn’t very large, the organization is a pretty small group, which makes it hard to get everyone together at the same time.

Besides the sukkah construction, they also have had a Rosh Hashana dinner this fall. Organizing events have been easier with Schaffer’s class involvement, Attig said.

“It’s helped make some of our goals a reality this semester so far,” he said.

Carson said one of the Sukkot traditions is to eat one meal a day inside the sukkah until the festival ends on Monday night.

JSO President Jacob Klaven, a sophomore from St. Louis, Mo., said he knew a few people who planned on eating in the sukkah, and in some circles, it’s even a custom to sleep inside.

“So far there’s not any organized sleeping groups, but who knows?” he said.

Carson said the event will promote tolerance, diversity and awareness of Jewish culture. He said he hoped other religious groups on campus would hold events that would promote their customs and educate students about their holidays as well.

There will be a Sukkot ceremony at the sukkah at 11 a.m. today.

Reach Hawkins Teague at features@wkuherald.com.