The Festival of Sukkot
also spelled Sukkoth, Succoth
Tishrei, the first month of the Jewish calendar, is the most important month of the Jewish year. During Tishrei, a number of related festivals are celebrated in quick succession. In Hebrew, the beginning of this sacred period is called Yamim Noraim, the "Days of Awe." In English they are usually called the High Holy Days.
The High Holy Days begin with the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShanah, which takes place on the first day of Tishrei. (The corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar will not be the same from year to year, since the Jewish calendar is lunisolar and the Gregorian calendar is solar, but Rosh HaShanah usually falls around the end of September.) Ten days later comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Four days after that, the High Holy Days have ended and we reach the harvest celebration of Sukkot, also known as the Festival of Booths or the Festival of Tabernacles. Immediately after Yom Kippur, and sometimes as early as Rosh HaShanah itself, many Jewish families begin building a sukkah, a temporary shelter that will serve as a spiritual (and sometimes literal) home for the length of the seven-day festival. ("Sukkot" is the plural of "sukkah.") Sukkot runs from the fifteenth to the twenty-third days of Tishrei.
The Festival's History and Symbolism
The festival commemorates the wanderings of the Israelites under the leadership of Moses, who did not have permanent dwellings after leaving Egypt and who were forced to live in booths as they searched for the Promised Land.
According to the Torah, Moses himself established the holiday, as described in Leviticus 23:33-44. After the Babylonian exile, the festival was reinstituted and revivified, given new meaning as a reaffirmation of the covenant: see Ezra 3:4 and Nehemiah 8:13-18. The second order of the Mishnah contains a tractate called Sukkah which provides further guidance about the appropriate size for a booth and the materials of which it should be made. The Talmud expands on these rules in the tract called Sukkah.
The roof of the sukkah must be made of a natural growing substance (not metal, and nothing that could be eaten). Usually the structure is lain over with branches; evergreen branches are most common in the United States. The walls of the structure are often decorated with fruits and vegetables (I have also seen them hung with brightly-coloured drawings of fruits and vegetables made by children). Those Jews who live in cities and whose homes do not have a back yard will often gather at a sukkah at their synagogue which the whole community shares. In the Middle Ages, urban Jews would sometimes remove a section of their roof, so that the part of their home that was exposed to the elements could serve as their sukkah. Traditionally, Jews lived in their sukkot for the full length of the festival, but today most of them simply take their meals there.
According to Leviticus 23:40, it is a mitzvah to wave four plants while reciting certain blessings on Sukkot. These are:
In recent times, the city of Jerusalem has established a "beautiful Sukkah" contest. Not only do the contestants try to make their sukkah itself attractive, but they go through great effort to find the prettiest etrog.
The Completion of the Festival
Sukkot is closed by Shemini Atzeret ("Eighth Day of Assembly") on 22 Tishri and and Simchat Torah ("Rejoicing in the Torah") on 23 Tishrei. Within Israel, both holidays take place on 22 Tishrei.
In Biblical times, Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShanah were seen as preparations for the harvest and are not given as much emphasis. However, as time went on, they grew in importance while Sukkot, perhaps due to the urbanization of Jewish life and the diminishing importance of the harvest, became less so.