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What is Sukkot?
Sukkot begins on the 15th of Tishrei, but 4 days after the conclusion of Yom Kippur. Mandated by the Torah, it is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (alongside Pesach and Shavuot).

The word "sukkot" literally means "booths," referring to the temporary dwellings in which farmers would live during the most intense period of harvest. Most likely, Sukkot's origins lay in an ancient agricultural festival that was given a specifically Jewish meaning in its incorporation into the Torah, made to commemorate the 40 years that the Israelites spent wandering the desert.

How do we observe Sukkot?
As the Israelites had only make-shift abodes during this period, so too, we, during this week-long holiday, are commanded to dwell in temporary structures. According to halakha, the sukkah is a three-sided structure, the walls of which need to be made of material durable enough that they will not blow away. The sekhakh ("covering") that serves as a roof, however, must be assembled from stuff that grows out of the earth - tree branches, corn stalks, bamboo, reed sticks, etc. This covering cannot be tied down, but must remain loose and, moreover, permeable to the elements.

During Sukkot, we are meant to spend as much time as possible in the sukkah - eating and even sleeping there. The following blessing is recited before each meal:

Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu leisheiv basukkah.

Also essential to Sukkot are the arba minim ("four species"): etrog (citrus fruit), lulav (palm branch), hadas (myrtle branch), and arava (willow branch). We are commanded to rejoice with these in hand.

The Ushpizin
On each night of Sukkot, we are meant to say the ushpizin, a short prayer welcoming in the ancestors. The ushpizin is first mentioned in the Zohar, the primary text of Jewish mysticism.

OK. So what's the point?
Sukkot's proximity to the High Holidays is remarkable (and, of course, a bit trying given the marathon that we've all just endured). On the High Holidays, we are enjoined to contemplate our own deaths and accept that, when it comes to matters of mortality, we have no control. You might then, after this extended meditation on corporeal vulnerability, be left with a question: how are we meant to live in full knowledge of the inevitability of our demise?

We might think of Sukkot as an answer to this question. On Sukkot, we build a home that gives us very little shelter - a fragile, temporary structure just like the body in which we live. Unlike the homes in which we typically reside, the sukkah does not provide any illusion of permanence or protection. But the porousness of this structure is also what allows us to enjoy the feel of the wind and the sun; to see the stars and to feel the rain on our skin. In other words, after the trial that is Yom Kippur, Sukkot appears to remind us that our condition of exposure is also the thing that connects us to the world. The same vulnerability that makes suffering inevitable is also the source of our capacity for joy. On Sukkot, we gather in this fragile structure to enjoy our own neediness (our need for the world; our need for one another), eating and drinking with friends and family, affirming together our mortal condition.

So Chag Sukkot Sameach! I hope you join me at the LJCC on Friday, October 10th at 5:30pm to celebrate one of my favorite holidays. 

Yours,
Lara