Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is named after the booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew) in which Jews traditionally dwell during this week-long celebration. According to rabbinic tradition, these flimsy sukkot represent the huts in which the Israelites dwelt during their forty years of wandering in the desert after escaping from slavery in Egypt. The festival of Sukkot is one of the three great pilgrimage festivals of the Jewish year.
Sukkot Resource 1: Quick Facts
Below you can download decorative holiday “Quick Facts” cards that can be easily used on bulletin boards, as place settings, or as informational handouts at your Sukkot event. You can also view short, informative articles on Sukkot.
“Quick Facts” Cards
Articles
Short overview of Sukkot
More articles on Sukkot from
MyJewishLearning.com
Sukkot Resource 2: Program Ideas and Creative Connections
Looking for good Sukkot themes/discussion ideas? TCI would be happy to come to your school to help you present these or other interesting themes and provide you with resources to help you facilitate discussions of your own!
Building a Sukkah
The most popular way of celebrating Sukkot is by building a sukkah, a temporary dwelling, commemorating both the temporary shelters in which farmers dwelt at harvest time to be close to their crops and those of the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. Try your hand at building a Sukkah on your school’s campus and decorate it to reflect the season.
Ushpizin – Welcoming Guests
Part of the celebration of the holiday is to invite Ushpizin (Aramaic for guests) into your sukkah. But this ritual goes beyond the literal. We also take time to invite our ancient ancestors in to be present with us for our meals. And we think about others we can’t literally sit down with, but with whom we’d like to share a meal. Who would you want to break bread with?
Be Happy!
Central to the themes of this holiday is the commandment to be happy. Ironically, it is also traditional to read the book of Ecclesiastes during the holiday as well -- quite a downer! What makes you happy? And how do we balance the trials we face in life while maintaining a positive attitude?
Shake your Lulav!
On Sukkot, it is customary to shake the lulav and etrog. The lulav is made up of palm, myrtle and willow branches, and are held together with the etrog or citron. The tradition is to wave the four species, accompanied by a blessing, in six directions -- first in front of you, to your right, behind you, to your left, up, then down. These symbols of nature remind us of how we are rooted to the land, but also are said to represent different body parts: Palm – the spine, myrtle – the eye, willow – the mouth, and etrog – the heart. How do we reflect our convictions through our actions, how we see the world, what we say and how we feel?
Sukkot and Thanksgiving
As a fall harvest festival, Sukkot has a lot in common with Thanskgiving. We recognize how lucky we are to not only have a roof over our heads, but food on our tables as well.
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