Sukkot – Feast of Tabernacles. Commemorating the exodus from Egypt, during which the Israelites lived in tents in the desert, Jews stayed, prayed, and ate in temporary, hand-built huts for seven consecutive days.
Sukkot is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals (Shalosh Regalim – Three Pilgrimages), during which every adult male was required to go to Jerusalem and appear before God. It is also a Jewish harvest festival, called Hag Ha-Asif – the Feast of Ingathering, as it is now the time of the autumn harvest in Israel.
The Book of Leviticus contains three basic commandments that had to be fulfilled during Sukkot: making a bouquet of four types of plants, living in a sukkah (shelter), and being joyful.
Sukkot – the booths symbolize both the vanity and transience of life, as well as God's loving care. Accepting this allows us to truly rejoice despite our fragility, our sensitivity, and the transience of everything that surrounds us. We know that although we are only booths, we are also much more than just booths. Knowing this, we can truly rejoice, says Dr. Fraydra Shapiro, a specialist in Jewish-Christian relations at the Israeli Center for Jewish-Christian Relations in Galilee.
Four days before Sukkot, on the evening after Yom Kippur, Jewish tradition dictated that a stake be driven into the ground in the place designated for the hut. In Poland, those who had permanent sukkahs would remove the roof on the evening of the eleventh day of Tishrei. On the eve of Sukkot, the sukkah should already be ready.
The interior of the hut was arranged so that the seven days of eating meals, receiving guests, and praying could be spent in the most comfortable conditions possible.