Joy and Thanks for Sukkot

Lev. 23:39 “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of God to last seven days.”



Sukkot is a holiday which can almost slip our minds, given its close timing to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. And yet, we begin the building a sukkah immediately following the conclusion of Yom Kippur, moving from one mitzvah to the next. Sukkot, of course, is a significant milestone in the Jewish calendar, marking one of three times yearly (along with Pesach and Shavuot) when the Jewish People made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for festival sacrifices.

The holiday is more than merely “dwelling” in a sukkah, or waiving the 4 species, although there is certainly delight in each of these rituals. The Torah portion we read on the holiday includes the verse cited above to remind us of the connection between the harvest and God’s blessings through nature’s bounty. Few of us (other than the hobby gardeners) have a connection to food production, so Sukkot is a reminder that we need to be mindful of where (and how) our food is produced. And because this holiday takes place during the time of the fall harvest in Israel, there is another connection to the land.

The second major theme of Sukkot is one of happiness, a reminder of the Torah command for us to rejoice before God for seven days (Lev. 23:30). It is for this reason that Sukkot is referred to as z’man simchatenu, the time of rejoicing (or happiness). In these difficult economic times, we may not feel in a particularly joyous mood. Perhaps those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to “keep on keeping on” can think of this command to be joyous as a spur to helping those who are not faring so well, with a kind word or deed.