Image: Sukkas on a Jerusalem street and apartment balcony. Photo by Yoninah.
“Succos: when G-d tells us to go outside and play, and reminds us everything we need is in the sukkah.” – @travelincatdoc
Sukkot was known in ancient times as THE Holiday, HeHahg. It was the biggest event of the Jewish year. That fact usually surprises American Jews, for whom the High Holidays and Passover are THE Holidays.
But in ancient times, all the observance we have just been through, the purification of body and soul, was just a warmup to the biggest holiday of all, a holiday when the Temple hosted special sacrifices and the Water Pouring Festival. During Sukkot, it was the custom to pour water over the altar in the Temple every day, and every night, the water was brought in a golden flask from the Pool of Siloah. It became a huge festival of light, too, with torches and jugglers and a joyful craziness. There is a record of a great rabbi, Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel, who juggled eight flaming torches as part of the celebration.
What happened, then? It all changed when the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE. Without the Temple, we couldn’t do sacrifices, and the Water Pouring didn’t really make sense. We didn’t have access to the Pool of Siloah.
So all that remained of Sukkot was the ancient sukkahs, which we still build. Today Sukkot is still joyous (especially in Israel) but it has become a holiday of hospitality and a quieter kind of joy.
Our modern Sukkot may not have fire-juggling rabbis (!) but it has a wonderful sweetness. Start looking around for a sukkah: it might be at your congregation, or in the yard of a friend. Or maybe you’ll have one in your yard this year. This is our reward for the hard work of the last six weeks, our time of rejoicing.