Sukkot

Sukkot is the Jewish Feast of Booths, a seven-day festival that combines harvest thanksgiving with memory of the Israelites’ wilderness journey after the Exodus. The Torah instructs people to live or spend significant time in temporary shelters called sukkot, reminding them that their ancestors lived in fragile dwellings and depended on divine protection. Families build a sukkah with a roof of natural branches loose enough that the sky can be sensed through it, then eat meals, welcome guests and sometimes sleep there. Another central ritual uses the ‘four species’—lulav, etrog, myrtle and willow—which are held and waved during prayer. Because Sukkot also comes at the close of the agricultural season in the land of Israel, joy and gratitude for harvest are central themes. The temporary shelter gives the festival its deeper lesson: security is never entirely created by walls or possessions, and abundance is best received with gratitude, hospitality and awareness of human vulnerability.

Sukkot is significant to the community that observes it and helps preserve religious, family and cultural continuity.

The sukkah is built with a roof of cut branches loose enough to see the stars through, and meals are eaten in it for seven days. The four species - palm, myrtle, willow and citron - are held together and waved. It ends with Simchat Torah, when the reading of the scroll finishes and begins again the same day.

Seven days in Israel, eight in the diaspora, followed immediately by Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah - which are one day in Israel and two outside it. The etrog trade has its own geography: Calabria, Morocco, Israel and Yemen each produce a variety with its own adherents.