Sukkot

A Kosher Sukkah in 46 Seconds: an Interview with the Inventors

Meet Mordechai Meiri, 48, from Ramat Hagolan and Yuval Sadeh, 43, from Nahariya — two inventors who head the Green Tent company which specializes in creating walls that can be inflated without construction. In the past three years, the two worked in regular construction of walls for various structures such as pools, restaurants, banquet halls, etc. and then one bright day the two decided to take their creativity one step forward and invent the next revolutionary idea: a portable inflatable sukkah. “It’s a modular model whose prototype we only just finished building. Our goal was to allow vacationers on chol hamoed to fulfill the commandment of sukkah even when they’re camping,” explains Meiri.

There are many advantages to this inflatable sukkah, the most obvious being that it doesn’t take up much space and during the rest of the year it can serve as a camping tent or a playroom  in the yard for the children romp in.
What is the cost, we ask? 

“Not more than what you’d have to pay for a stable pre-fab sukkah which will last for many years,” Meiri promises. 

Its surprising to note that so far they have sold 8,000 sukkahs like these throughout the world, and the demand is only growing despite the fact that the inventors have done no advertising besides preparing a small informational film that was uploaded to Youtube.

Meiri replies with a smile that “G-d loves us, apparently. Since we knew that the initial quantity of sukkahs that we manufactured was small, in comparison to the demand that we envisioned — we didn’t even advertise besides a short informational film that we put on Youtube. To our amazement, most of the buyers came to us after they had searched for the word ”sukkah” on Google. They were directed to our film on Youtube, which showed over a 100,000 likes published on Facebook.”

Since this special sukkah is manufactured in China, Meiri and Sadeh had more than a few difficulties bringing the idea to fruition. “What the rabbis explained to us to do didn’t always match what the Chinese understood. So we had to improve the model again and again to fit the halachic parameters,” Meiri says. He adds, “The rabbis who permitted the sukkah were amazed and one of them even told us, ‘A redeemer has come to Zion!’ so it certainly seems that our efforts were worth it.”
What next?

The two say that all that remains is to locate the investor who will realize the immense business potential in the invention and will invest in setting up a mass assembly line that will answer the huge demand. “Now we are in the process of negotiating with various investors and hope that our efforts will bear fruit and will answer our expectations.”

For a picture of the sukkah, go to: http://www.ohel-yarok.co.il/סוכה-מתנפחת/

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