50 Fun Facts About Sukkot

Sukkot begins on the 15th day of which Hebrew month?

Tishrei is the seventh month when counted from spring, so the Torah dates Sukkot to 'the fifteenth day of the seventh month' even though the Jewish new year falls on Tishrei's first day.

Sukkot begins five days after which Jewish holy day?

Yom Kippur has barely ended when the mood flips from fasting to feasting: tradition urges families to start building the sukkah that same night, going straight from one commandment to the next.

Sukkot is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals alongside Shavuot and which holiday?

Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot each drew Israelites to the Temple in Jerusalem, and Deuteronomy adds a rule for the journey: no pilgrim was to turn up empty-handed.

By what English name is Sukkot also widely known?

Feast of Tabernacles borrows the Latin tabernaculum, 'tent', itself from a word for a hut, which is why 'Feast of Booths' is the same name in plainer English.

What is the Hebrew name for the roof covering of a sukkah?

S'chach has to go on last: by tradition the covering only counts if it is laid once the sukkah's walls are already standing.

A sukkah roof must be made of what?

Plant material cut from the ground means exactly that: the Mishnah rules a sukkah roofed by a living grapevine or gourd unfit until the growth is severed from its roots.

Which tied animal do the Talmud's rabbis all accept as a sukkah wall?

An elephant passes because of its bulk: the rabbis worried a living wall might die and slump, but reasoned that even a dead elephant would lie higher than the minimum wall height.

The etrog, one of the four species, is what kind of fruit?

Citron is never named in the Torah, which asks only for the fruit of a 'hadar', or beautiful, tree; it was the rabbis of the Talmud who settled on this fruit as the etrog.

The lulav is a closed frond taken from which tree?

Date palm fronds make the lulav the tallest of the four species, which the Talmud gives as the reason the blessing over the whole bundle mentions the lulav alone.

Hadass, bound alongside the lulav, comes from which plant?

Myrtle has fragrance but no taste, so a famous midrash reads the hadass as the person with good deeds but no Torah learning, tied into one bundle with everyone else.

Aravah, the fourth of the four species, is a branch of which tree?

Willow has neither taste nor scent, so the midrash casts the aravah as the person with no learning and no good deeds, then insists it be tied in with the rest so that each makes up for the others.

A famous midrash makes the lulav the spine and the etrog which body part?

The heart is the etrog's match by shape, as the leaves bound beside it are likened to an eye and a mouth; holding all four together stands for serving God with the whole self.

What is done with the four species once the blessing over them has been said?

Waved in six directions, the species salute the One who owns the four winds, heaven and earth, in the Talmud's words; sages in the Land of Israel added that the motion wards off harmful winds and dews.

The four species are set aside on the Sabbath because the rabbis feared people would do what?

Carry them in the street was the Talmud's fear: someone unsure of the ritual might walk a lulav over to an expert for a lesson, so the whole practice gives way for the day.

In the Mishnah, who reads the Torah publicly every seventh Sukkot?

The king read from a wooden platform built in the Temple court; the Mishnah recalls Agrippa winning the sages' praise by standing to read when custom let him sit.

Which forefather is welcomed into the sukkah as the guest of the first day?

Abraham leads the list as the first patriarch, and he suits a custom built on hospitality: the Bible shows him running from his tent to welcome passing strangers.

Which figure is the ushpizin guest on the seventh and final day?

David closes the week because each guest stands for one of seven divine attributes, and his, sovereignty, comes last in the kabbalists' sequence.

What is the seventh day of Sukkot called?

Hoshana Rabbah, the 'great hoshana', sends worshippers round the synagogue seven times instead of once, then has them beat a bundle of leafy twigs on the floor.

The ushpizin custom of welcoming biblical guests into the sukkah comes from which work of Jewish mysticism?

The Zohar puts Joseph after Moses and Aaron, matching each guest to a mystical attribute, though many Ashkenazi prayer books later moved the seven back into the order of their lives.

What are the intermediate, semi-festive days of Sukkot called?

Chol HaMoed blends weekday and festival: cooking and family outings are fine while laundry, haircuts and needless work wait, so many observant families take the week as a holiday break.

Which biblical book do Ashkenazi synagogues read on the Sabbath during Sukkot?

Ecclesiastes is often said to suit the week because its refrain that all is vanity matches life in a flimsy hut; a medieval tradition adds that Solomon first read it to the festival crowds.

Which separate holiday begins as soon as the seven days of Sukkot end?

Shemini Atzeret, the 'Eighth Day of Assembly', is pictured by Rashi as a father begging his children to stay one more day after a long banquet, because parting from them is so hard.

What does the holiday of Simchat Torah celebrate?

Completing the annual reading cycle is a day when everyone gets a turn: even the children are called up to the Torah together, and by old custom the reader of the final verses throws the congregation a party.

What are the seven festive circuits made with the Torah scrolls on Simchat Torah called?

Hakafot need only go once round the synagogue each, but the singing and dancing with the scrolls runs far longer and often spills out into the street.

On Simchat Torah morning, the end of Deuteronomy is followed by the start of which book?

Genesis follows within minutes, read from a second scroll so there is no pause; the person called up for its opening verses is honoured as the 'bridegroom of Genesis'.

The seven circuits made in synagogue on Sukkot's last day are said to recall which city's fall?

Jericho fell after Joshua's army circled it once a day for six days and seven times on the seventh, the same rhythm worshippers keep with their circuits through the week of Sukkot.

The 70 bulls offered in the Temple over Sukkot were said to honor what?

The nations listed in Genesis 10 come to seventy by rabbinic count, and the Talmud says the bulls atoned for them all; one sage sighed that the nations never knew what they lost when the Temple fell.

In the Temple's water-drawing ceremony, the water was carried up from which Jerusalem pool?

Siloam lay downhill from the Temple Mount; a golden jug was filled there and carried up through the Water Gate to trumpet blasts before a priest poured it out at the altar.

The Talmud says whoever never saw the Water-Drawing Celebration has never seen what?

Joy in his life is how the Mishnah sums up nights when giant lamps, their wicks torn from the priests' worn-out clothes, burned so brightly that no courtyard in Jerusalem was left dark.

At the water-drawing celebration, Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel was said to juggle eight of what?

Flaming torches, tossed and caught so that none touched another, were the party piece of the man who headed the Sanhedrin; the same Talmud page has later sages juggling knives, eggs and cups of wine.

King Jeroboam's rival to Sukkot sent northern pilgrims to which city instead of Jerusalem?

Bethel housed one of Jeroboam's two golden calves, and he set his feast there for the 15th of the eighth month, a copy of Sukkot held exactly one month late.

Which other name does the Torah give Sukkot, pointing to its farming roots?

Festival of Ingathering is what Exodus calls it, 'at the end of the year, when you gather in the results of your work from the field'; that older farm name says nothing about booths at all.

According to Leviticus, dwelling in booths recalls what?

The Israelites' years in the desert are the reason Leviticus gives, yet the Torah's own wilderness stories have them living in tents, never booths, a gap that has kept commentators busy ever since.

Which rabbi launched the public Lulav campaign in 1953, sending students to offer the ritual to strangers?

Menachem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, made it one of his first outreach campaigns, and followers offering a lulav to passers-by became a familiar Sukkot sight in big cities.

A sukkah's roof covering must be dense enough to do what?

Give more shade than sun is the floor the Mishnah sets, but tradition adds a ceiling too: the covering should stay loose enough for the stars to show through it at night.

A pitam is which part of an etrog?

The stigma and style at its tip can drop off while the fruit grows and leave the etrog perfectly valid; if the pitam is knocked off after picking, the fruit can no longer be used for the blessing.

The Mishnah rules a sukkah valid even when it is built where?

On the deck of a ship or the back of a wagon a sukkah still counts, the Mishnah says, because it is only meant to be a temporary home; what rules one out is a tree, a ceiling or a second hut overhead.

The Diamante variety of etrog is grown chiefly in which country?

Italy's Calabrian coast grows it around the town of Diamante, where rabbinic inspectors check the trees before picking, since fruit from a tree grafted onto another species' roots is unfit for the ritual.

Some families save the etrog to eat candied on which later holiday?

Tu BiShvat is the new year for fruit trees, so the etrog set aside after Sukkot returns as candied peel or jam, eaten with a prayer for a beautiful etrog at the next festival.

Which Ashkenazi dish is traditional at Sukkot, its wrapped filling read as a sign of a full harvest?

Stuffed cabbage, or holishkes, stays on the table through Simchat Torah, when two rolls laid side by side are said to look like the scrolls of a Torah.

Which fruit, one of the Torah's seven species of the Land of Israel, is a favourite sukkah decoration?

Pomegranates are among the seven crops Deuteronomy praises the land for, a list of grains and fruit that, oddly enough, leaves out the etrog, the festival's own fruit.

One Talmudic view reads the 'booths' of Leviticus as a miraculous shelter made of what?

Clouds of glory is one rabbi's reading of the verse; another held that the booths were real huts, and the Talmud records both, so a sukkah recalls divine shelter either way.

Which city's Union Square hosted 'Sukkah City', a 2010 contest for architect-designed sukkahs?

New York got twelve winning huts, picked from more than 600 entries, which were built off-site and trucked into the square for a two-day show.

A 'pedi-sukkah' is a mobile sukkah built onto what?

A tricycle with the hut fixed behind the saddle lets its rider pedal to people on the street; a Chabad yeshiva student built the first so that passers-by could step in and say a blessing.

Which community builds its sukkahs indoors, with roofs made of hanging fruit?

Samaritans moved their sukkahs inside about 1,500 years ago, on a high priest's ruling, to avoid drawing the eye of hostile rulers, and no high priest since has ruled that they should go back out.

What do Lubavitcher Hasidim refrain from doing in the sukkah, citing its holiness?

Sleeping in the sukkah is part of the commandment for most observant Jews, weather permitting, which makes the custom of Chabad and some other Hasidim a striking exception.

Sukkot is called Z'man Simchateinu in Hebrew, meaning what?

The time of our rejoicing echoes Deuteronomy, which commands joy at Sukkot and spells out who must share in it: servants, strangers, orphans and widows alike.

Some have compared biblical Sukkot to the origins of which American holiday?

Thanksgiving's Pilgrims were devoted Bible readers, and some writers suggest they took Sukkot as the model for a harvest feast of gratitude, though that is not the standard account of the holiday.

Which weather during Sukkot does the Mishnah take as a sign of divine displeasure?

Rain drives everyone out of the sukkah, which the Mishnah compares to a servant who comes to pour his master's wine and has a jug of water thrown in his face.

After the Temple fell, which rabbi ordered the four species taken everywhere on all seven days?

Yohanan ben Zakkai made the change 'in commemoration of the Temple': until then the full week applied only at the Temple in Jerusalem, and everyone else took the lulav for a single day.