Adath Jeshurun

Sukkot 101

Reprinted with per­mis­sion. For more about Jew­ish hol­i­days and Jew­ish life, visit MyJewishLearning.com.

Begin­ning five days after Yom Kip­pur, Sukkot is named after the booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) in which Jews are sup­posed to dwell dur­ing this week-long cel­e­bra­tion. Accord­ing to rab­binic tra­di­tion, these flimsy sukkot rep­re­sent the huts in which the Israelites dwelt dur­ing their forty years of wan­der­ing in the desert after escap­ing from slav­ery in Egypt. The fes­ti­val of Sukkot is one of the three great pil­grim­age fes­ti­vals (chag­gim or regalim) of the Jew­ish year.

His­tory
The ori­gins of Sukkot are found in an ancient autum­nal har­vest fes­ti­val. Indeed it is often referred to as hag ha-asif, “The Har­vest Fes­ti­val.” Much of the imagery and rit­ual of the hol­i­day revolves around rejoic­ing and thank­ing God for the com­pleted har­vest. The sukkah rep­re­sent the huts that farm­ers would live in dur­ing the last hec­tic period of har­vest before the com­ing of the win­ter rains. As is the case with other fes­ti­vals whose ori­gins may not have been Jew­ish, the Bible rein­ter­preted the fes­ti­val to imbue it with a spe­cific Jew­ish mean­ing. In this man­ner, Sukkot came to com­mem­o­rate the wan­der­ings of the Israelites in the desert after the rev­e­la­tion at Mount Sinai, with the huts rep­re­sent­ing the tem­po­rary shel­ters that the Israelites lived in dur­ing those forty years.

At Home
Many of the most pop­u­lar rit­u­als of Sukkot are prac­ticed in the home. As soon after the con­clu­sion of Yom Kip­pur as pos­si­ble, often on the same evening, one is enjoined to begin build­ing the sukkah, or hut, that is the cen­tral sym­bol of the hol­i­day. The sukkah is a flimsy struc­ture with at least three sides, whose roof is made out of thatch or branches, which pro­vides some shade and pro­tec­tion from the sun, but also allows the stars to be seen at night. It is tra­di­tional to dec­o­rate the sukkah and to spend as much time in it as pos­si­ble. Weather per­mit­ting, meals are eaten in the sukkah, and the hardier among us may also elect to sleep in the sukkah. In a wel­com­ing cer­e­mony called ush­pizin, ances­tors are sym­bol­i­cally invited to par­take in the meals with us. And in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the bounty of the Holy Land, we hold and shake four species of plants (arba minim), con­sist­ing of palm, myr­tle, and wil­low (lulav), together with cit­ron (etrog).

In the Com­mu­nity
As with all fes­ti­vals, ser­vices play an impor­tant role in the com­mu­nal cel­e­bra­tion of Sukkot. In addi­tion to spe­cial fes­ti­val read­ings, includ­ing Psalms of Praise (Hal­lel), on Sukkot addi­tional prayers are included in the ser­vice ask­ing God to save us (hoshana, from which we get the Eng­lish word hosanna). Dur­ing the Hoshana prayers, con­gre­gants march around the syn­a­gogue sanc­tu­ary hold­ing the lulav and etrog. The sev­enth and last day of the fes­ti­val is called Hoshanah Rabba, the “Great Hoshana.”

The Inter­me­di­ate Days
Dur­ing the inter­me­di­ate days of Sukkot, one is allowed to pur­sue nor­mal activ­ity. One is nonethe­less sup­posed to hold and wave the lulav and etrog on a daily basis, eat one’s meals in the sukkah, and con­tinue to dwell in the sukkah for the remain­der of the holiday.

The­ol­ogy and Themes
The enforced sim­plic­ity of eat­ing and per­haps also liv­ing in a tem­po­rary shel­ter focuses our minds on the impor­tant things in life and divorces us from the mate­r­ial pos­ses­sions of the mod­ern world that dom­i­nate so many of our lives. Even so, Sukkot is a joy­ful hol­i­day and jus­ti­fi­ably referred to as zeman sim­chateynu, the “sea­son of our joy.”