Chag Succot Sameach, happy Feast of Huts!

“And in the succoth (huts) you will reside for seven days” (Leviticus, 23:42).

Succot, Feast of Tabernacles or Huts, marks a week of pure joy in the Jewish calendar. It begins on the 15th of the month of Tishri, 5 days after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and belongs to the Cycle of Solemn Festivals with which the Hebrew year begins. Chag HaSuccot, which began this year on the evening of Sunday 23rd September, together with Pesach (Easter) and Shavuot (Pentecost) is one of the three holidays of pilgrimage.

Succot is also called Zman Simchatenu, or ‘the Time of our Joy’: the joy of not having anything else apart the warmth of friendship, the smile of hospitality, the trust in a higher protection. Joy of living in a precarious and temporary home, as is our life. A time of year in which the past is welcomed (according to tradition, every day you are visited in the hut by a different character in Jewish history: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David and Solomon) and are celebrated with confidence the future.

A festival in which different plant species are tossed – palm, myrtle, willow and cedar – to symbolize unity, lightheartedness and bond with nature and the Earth.

The party in which, since biblical times and as told in the Torah, all the nations of the world are protagonists.

MEIS wishes you Chag Succot Sameach, happy Feast of Huts!