Sukkot

When it falls

Seven days from the fifteenth of Tishrei, the full moon five days after Yom Kippur, in late September or October. The eighth day is Shemini Atzeret and, outside Israel, the ninth is Simchat Torah.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The Israelites lived in booths (sukkot) during the forty years in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, and for a week each year their descendants leave the house and eat and sleep in one, roofed with cut branches through which the stars must show. It is also the autumn harvest festival, the ingathering, the third of the three pilgrimages to the Temple, and the Torah calls it simply the season of our joy.

The four species held together in the blessing, a palm frond (lulav), three myrtle and two willow branches, and the citron (etrog), are waved to the six directions on each day of the festival; the markets of Jerusalem and Brooklyn sell nothing else for the week before.

How the day is kept

• The sukkah built in the days after Yom Kippur, in a garden, on a balcony or a roof: at least three walls, and a roof of branches or bamboo that gives more shade than sun.
• Every meal taken in the sukkah for the week, and in Israel and in mild climates the family sleeps in it; guests are invited each night, and the seven biblical guests (ushpizin) are welcomed in.
• The lulav and etrog shaken in the morning service, and the daily circuits of the synagogue with them (hoshanot), seven on the last day, Hoshana Rabbah.
• Simchat Torah ends the season: the last verses of Deuteronomy and the first of Genesis are read in one breath, and the Torah scrolls are danced with seven times round the synagogue and into the street.

At the table

Stuffed foods for the harvest fullness, stuffed cabbage and stuffed peppers, kreplach, and the year's new fruit; in Israel the etrog becomes jam once the week is over.

More harvest festivals