The reminder to take time to pause and celebrate a good harvest is timeless
Back in Biblical times, Sukkot was one of the major Jewish holidays, and the name translates roughly to “Festival of Huts.” The basic idea was that everyone had to build a makeshift structure, called a “sukkah” out of tree branches. Like many rituals in the Jewish Bible, the rules for building a sukkah are complicated and exacting.
After the sukkah is built, it is decorated with symbols of the harvest, and the tradition is to then eat, live, and sleep in it for an entire week. This may sound almost as strange as say, hiding decorated eggs all over the house, but after a hard summer of farming and then spending the High Holy Days in temple services all day, a week of partying outside with your village was probably pretty great.
The original intent of Sukkot is said to be a symbolic reminder of the huts that the people of Moses had to live in as they wandered the desert for 40 years. On a deeper level, however, we still celebrate the feast of huts as a celebration of the bounty of the harvest, much like Thanksgiving, and as an annual reminder of the frailty and fleeting nature of all human construction. The tree branches, when still attached to the tree, are green, alive, and growing.
Sukkot is a great reminder for all of us to take a break from the garden and fall clean-up chores and spend time outside with the people you love, enjoying food, the trees, the sky, and each other.If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation.
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