Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles is a Jewish festival lasting seven or eight days. It comes five days after Yom Kippur. It is one of the three pilgrimage festivals.
In this event, people celebrate the gathering of the crops, and remember the protection G-d gave the Israelites when they left Egypt.
After leaving Egypt, the Israelites lived in the wilderness and had no homes. They made small temporary shelters. Sukkot is celebrated by building a temporary shelter (sukkah). It is traditional to decorate the sukkah with leaves, vines, and other plants.
Some people spend as much time as possible in the sukkah. Some have their meals in it when they can. Some people visit their local synagogue’s sukkah. Other ways of observing Sukkot include holding, shaking, and saying a blessing with the Four Kinds (Arba Minim). The Four Kinds include palm, myrtle, and willow, and a citron.
It is said that during Sukkot, G-d decides how much rain will fall that winter. Therefore, during Temple times, Sukkot included a special, joyous water ceremony.
Today, some communities still have nightly celebrations that include singing and dancing during Sukkot.
Sukkot ends with holidays called Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
Text adapted from Simple English Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0.
