'You are to keep the Feast of Sukkot for seven days, after gathering in the produce from your threshing floor and winepress.' So you will rejoice in your feast—you, your son and daughter, slave and maid, Levite and outsider, orphan and widow within your gates. Seven days you will feast to Adonai your God in the place He chooses, because Adonai your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hand, and you will be completely filled with joy.

- Deuteronomy 16:13-15 TLV

Every year when Sukkot comes around, our little, not-so-athletic, Jewish family suddenly turns into a clan of seasoned lumberjacks. Saws, axes, and other various power tools emerge from the garage as my brothers trapse into the backyard to start cutting down branches for our sukkah. It's a yearly ritual that nearly gives my mother a cardiac event and almost always leads to someone needing first aid, but my family wouldn't have it any other way. Together, we dig holes in the ground and put up the four corner posts of the sukkah. Each post being a smallish tree that was recently felled. Then we put up the crossbeams, lashing them together with jute twine or hempen rope. Then, once there are three walls and a few crossbeams overhead for a roof, we begin dragging leafy branches, tall grass, and corn stalks onto it. We tie everything we can to make walls and fill in the roof while still leaving room to see the night sky.  By the time dinner is ready, a sturdy, woodland structure has appeared in the backyard!

Once the walls are up, everyone goes to town on decorations. Twinkling lights get strung, crafts get hung, pinecones covered in glitter are scattered across the ground and occasionally we hang garlands of cinnamon or oranges! It's like a Jewish version of decorating a Christmas tree! Every year it baffles me how it all just comes together so beautifully, despite having done it a dozen times, in a dozen different ways, in a dozen different backyards. 

Now, we know that it would be easier to buy some lumber, bolt it together, cover it in fabric, and save it for the following year when we're done. We've even seen it done with PVC pipe and pre-made lattice walls, which works just as well. There are even tiny, mobile sukkot made of plastic sheets and wire that the orthodox put on bikes so that no one misses out on observing the commandments. And if that's your sukkah, then congratulations! You've followed the commandment appropriately!

So on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruits of the land, you are to keep the Feast of Adonai for seven days. The first day is to be a Shabbat rest, and the eighth day will also be a Shabbat rest. On the first day you are to take choice fruit of trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and rejoice before Adonai your God for seven days. You are to celebrate it as a festival to Adonai for seven days in the year. It is a statute forever throughout your generations—you are to celebrate it in the seventh month. You are to live in sukkot for seven days. All the native-born in Israel are to live in sukkot, so that you to dwell in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am Adonai your God.

- Leviticus 23:39-43 TLV

But for us, there's something truly remarkable about the process of foraging for all of our building materials ourselves. Each year, we don't know exactly where we'll be, what backyard we'll be using, or who will be present to help us build the sukkah. But every year, by the end of the first day of sukkot, there it stands - a testament to our faithful God who sustained us throughout our captivity, set us free from slavery, and brought us to a land of plenty. 

Since none of us are native to Israel itself, we don't sleep or live in our sukkah the way that modern Israelis do. But we have as many meals together as we can under the leafy canopy. We sing our songs of gratitude, shake our lulav and etrog, roast our (kosher) marshmallows, and celebrate the goodness of God. Our family knows that once the sukkah is built, it's where we will all come together as often as possible during the holiday. So today, consider how God would have you build His Sukkah and just watch who will come to celebrate with you! 

Build it and they will come, my friends!

We've put together a little celebration card for you so that you too can participate in Adonai's Feast of Tabernacles. We've compiled the scriptures to read and traditional blessings for the season. So download your celebration card today via our TLV Bible App and get ready for Sukkot 2024 this October 16th - 24th!