Sukkot
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.
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, and the sukkot represent the
huts that farmers would live in during the last
hectic period of harvest before the coming of the
winter rains. 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.
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).
--MyJewishLearning.com
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