Sunday, October 4th, 2020

The cafe at the entrance to our building has roped off the benches on its patio. People, despite the lockdown, sat and ate there last week. Not anymore. The cafe’s only supposed to be doing deliveries, but the doors are still open for takeout. No one’s staying there to eat. Whoever decides these things must have figured that this compromise works. In the building’s atrium, there’s now a sukkah, the thatch-roofed hut used in this week’s holiday. People are bringing food down and eating in it. That’s apparently OK. It’s a small space. The top, at least, is open to the air. And everyone who enters the building must wear a mask, so there’s at least some sense that those who go through to the atrium will follow the rules. I only see two sukkot on the way to work today, one in a yard and one on a balcony. In other years, I’ve seen far more. We still only have about half the usual workforce in the office. No one even tries to gather a group for the afternoon prayers. I go to the front, open the office doors, and straighten the prayer books, but no one else comes by, either from within the office or outside. After work, I stop into the supermarket. Some of the fall fruits are in, right on schedule. But the clementines and pomelas are still green, and the persimmons are small and hard. It’s too early to buy them. I get shelled almonds and several kinds of cheese. When I emerge, I see that the next bus isn’t for half an hour. I walk home.