Sukkot

‘Another celebration, the festival of Shelters, must be observed for seven days at the end of the harvest season, after the grain is threshed and the grapes have been pressed. This will be a happy time of rejoicing together with your family.’ (Deut. 16:13-14).
The name is explained in Genesis 33:17, ‘and Jacob journeyed to Succoth; and built for himself a house, and made booths for his livestock, therefore the place is named Succoth.’ The Hebrew word Sukkoth means ‘huts.’
Feast of Tabernacles, or Festival of Booths, it is also called the Festival of Ingathering. Three times during the year G-d commanded the children of Israel to assemble in the Temple in Jerusalem. They were to present offerings to G-d at Passover, Shavuoth and Sukkoth. This is the third festival in Lev. 23.
‘Make booths, as it is written.’ (Neh. 8:8, 15). ‘So the people went out…and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their court… and there was a great rejoicing.’ (Neh. 8:16-17). The Law of Moses requires that for seven days and night all Jews live in huts partially roofed by green boughs, palm branches, or piles of reeds. In these frail structures the families feast and sing, and visit, and sleep. At the mercy of the weather, they live as their ancestors did in the desert, in the first forty years of independence, before they conquered Canaan.
The suko custom may have helped to limit the smugness of prosperity. In the suko under the night sky, wind and rain could at any moment make life dismal. The moon shone through the loose ceiling of boughs, the old warning of the way fortune changes. The stars – the Law suggests that he stars be visible through the roof - may have been reminders that life at its richest is a brief spark in a black mystery.
For the harvest-time hut (the archaic word is tabernacle) is a perfect instrument for delighting and instructing the children. You can construct the hut in your own yard. What is wanted is nothing more than three or four walls, some slats of wood at the top, and the covering for the roof – branches, boughs, grass, reeds. There has to be room in the suko for a table and chairs. Decorating the suko becomes a pleasant game of improvising patterns with fruits, vegetables, flowers, and anything else that adds color and gaiety.
The heaps of fruit, flowers, corn, and squash dwindle on the table. The bare walls of the suko disappear under living patterns of yellow, scarlet and green.
Night falls. The family dines by candlelight and moonlight in the open air, in the curious hut filled with harvest fragrance. The old holiday melodies and chants sounds strangely new outdoors.
In Old Covenant times the twelve hours of the night were divided into three periods, or watches. Different men took turns guarding the city, each responsible for a section of the wall. The first watch was till midnight, the middle watch was till 3 am. And the mornings watch till 6 am.
It is the custom to stay up the entire night of Shavuo. We could be studying and discussing G-d’s Word, calling it the night watch. It is a time for personal preparation, and traditionally involves studying a small section from each book of the Torah, signifying that it is all important. (Ps. 119:148; Lk. 6:12; 2 Tim. 3:16-17). During this time the book of Ruth is read. The story takes place in Bethlehem at the harvest time.
We can trace the ancestry of Y’Shua and His birth in Bethlehem to this story (Ruth 3:11-17).
One year Y’Shua risked His life to celebrate the festival. (Jn. 7) He was a ‘wanted man’ in Judea. His family went on ahead and then He Himslf slipped quietly into Jerusalem. In the midst of the feast ‘Y’Shua went up into the Temple and began to teach.’ (Jn. 7:14). Everyone who heard Him marveled: how had this man become so learned?
The theme of His teaching related directly to the festival. ‘Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Y’Shua stood and cried out, saying, ‘if any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me’, as the Scripture said, ‘from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.’ (Jn. 7:37-38).
A special feature of this particular worship service was the sending of a priest to the Pool of Siloam with a golden pitcher to draw water which was poured into a bowl at the altar. With the approach of the rainy season, Israel depended on G-d to send rain for the next season’s crops. This was a time for serious praying, asking G-d to open the gates of heaven and send the necessary rain. As the priest poured out the water, he visually demonstrated G-d’s continuing and faithful love in sending rain. It is now carried another deeper spiritual meaning. This was a demonstration or sign of Israel’s hope for the coming of the Messiah as they looked forward to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that G-d had promise.
Y’Shua, knowing the drought that existed in their hearts, probably quoted the familiar words of the prophet Isaiah. ‘Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters’ (Isa. 55:1). ‘And G-d will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places…and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail’ (Isa. 58:11). “For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground: I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants.’ (Isa. 44:3). The concluding remarks of the officers who listened to His teachings are significant: ‘He says such wonderful things!...We’ve never heard anything like it.’ (Jn. 7:46).
The booth or hut that was made is a reminder of the temporary endurance of material buildings as opposed to the permanent and abiding strength of G-d and the heavenly shelter that He promises. “For we are sojourners before Thee, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow..’ (1 Chr. 29:15). It should be built flimsy and shaky in order to symbolize this principle. “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from G-d, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’ (2 Chr. 5:1) the roof should be only lightly covered for stars, moon, sun and rain to filter through, a reminder that nothing can ever separate us from G-d’s love. (Rom. 8:38-39).
“When you have gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of G-d for seven days.’ (Lev. 23:39) our Thanksgiving Day celebration grew out of this festival.