Concept

Sukkot סוכות

Seven days in a booth with the four species—the festival of harvest and of memory of the desert.

Sukkot begins five days after Yom Kippur and changes the key entirely: from judgment to a joy the Torah states outright—"you shall be only joyful". For seven days one eats, and many sleep, in a sukkah, a temporary booth roofed with cut plants through which the stars must be visible.

The Torah explains: "so that your generations will know that I settled the children of Israel in booths". Rabbi Akiva took this literally, Rabbi Eliezer as the clouds of glory around the camp; both readings live side by side.

The second commandment is the four species, taken together. Midrash likens them to four kinds of people—and says they are bound into one bundle.

In the Temple the water libation was accompanied by the Simchat Beit haShoeva, of which it was said: whoever has not seen it has never seen joy.

On the timeline

2449 · 1312 BCEThe Erection of the Tabernacle 2449 · 1312 BCEThirty-Eight Years of Wandering in the Wilderness 2935 · 826 BCEThe Dedication of the First Temple 3413 · 348 BCEThe Ascent of Ezra the Scribe and the Renewal of Torah 3426 · 335 BCENehemiah and the Walls of Jerusalem

Moses Rabbi Akiva Ezra the Scribe Ecclesiastes Leviticus The Temple Halakha

Sources

Tanakh

Vayikra 23:33–43 — the booths and the four species

Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar

Vayikra Rabbah 30:12 — the four species as four kinds of Jew
Sukkah 11b — the dispute: actual booths or the clouds of glory
Mishnah Sukkah 5:1 — simchat beit hashoevah: “whoever has not seen it has never seen rejoicing”

Acharonim and later rabbinic literature

Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 625–669 — the laws of Sukkot

Basis: tradition.