Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

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Welcome to Fascinating Facts and Tantalizing Trivia

A Hartson Dowd Column

Oct 5, 2006

Sukkot Feast of Tabernacles 2006

The Feast of Tabernacles (Feast of Sukkot or Feast of Booths) is an eight day Judaeo - Christian festival (the Season of our Joy) that pictures the establishment of the 1000 year messianic kingdom to be set up at the second coming of Yeshua the Messiah (Christ). It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals God gave the children of Israel in the Bible (Leviticus 23).  It was during these festivals that the Israelites would bring their offerings and firstlings to the Temple in Jerusalem and enjoy a feast! 

Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) is not a "Jewish festival", but rather a "Hebrew" festival, for it was given to all the Israelite tribes, not just Judah.  Today, it would be observed by all of God's people since  ". . . if ye be Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal 3:29).

Our Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot Booths) is like a rehearsal looking forward to that day when the King of Kings rules his people from Jerusalem and each nation goes up to celebrate it. (Zech 14:16)

The festival of Sukkot begins the fifth day of Yom Kipper on the fifteenth day of Tishri.  The Sukkot festival makes quite a drastic transition from one of the most solemn holidays to one of the most joyous.  The seven-day festival is sometimes called Zeman Simkhateinu, the Season of Our Rejoicing.  The two days following the festival are separate holidays, Shemini Atzeret and Simkhat Torah, but are commonly thought of as part of Sukkot.

The name of the festival comes from the practice of building little booths {sukkah} in the fields during the harvest, and from the temporary dwellings in which the Israelites lived as they wandered in the desert for forty years after their departure from Egypt.

The traditional way of observing Sukkot is to build a small booth or tabernacle and live in it during the nine days.  These small huts usually have three walls and a roof covered with material that will not blow away in the wind.  They are decorated with flowers, fruit and leafy branches.

Jewish families in Canada often eat all their meals in the sukkah.  Nowadays, Orthadox congregations build a sukkah in the synagogue, while some Reform Jews choose to make miniature models of the ancient huts and use them as a centerpiece on the family’s dinner table.

Special prayers of joy are said in the synagogue and in the sukkah.  Another observance that is part of the services involves what are known as The Four Species.  A palm branch, three myrtle twigs and two willow branches are bound together and are collectively called the lulav, held in the right hand.  An etrog {a large citrus fruit} is held in the left hand.  With these four species in hand, one recites a blessing and waves in all directions to “rejoice before the Lord” and to symbolize God’s universality.

On the seventh day of Sukkot, known as Hoshanah Rabbah, these symbolic plants are used again.  Carrying the Four Species, seven circuits are made around the bimah (the pedestal where the Torah is read).  These processions are known as Hoshanahs because a prayer with the refrain “Hoshana” (Please save us!”) is repeated.

During Shemini Atzeret, on the eighth day Jews pray for rain and on the ninth day, Simhat Torah, or “Rejoicing for the Law” marks the completion and new beginning of the annual cycle of the reading of the Torah in the synagogue.

Hartson Sager Dowd

hsdowd@telus.net