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Tabernacles, Festival of


Or Booths, Ingathering, Heb. Sukkoth

Along with Passover and the Festival of Weeks, one of three major pilgrimage festivals of Judaism. Celebrated for eight days from the 15th of Tishri (September/October), it was Israel’s joyous, thanksgiving, autumnal harvest festival for the ingathering from the threshing floor and the wine press (Exod 23:16; Exod 34:22; Deut 16:13-15). Its main distinctive ritual is the requirement to “dwell in booths” in commemoration of God’s protection of Israel during the wilderness wanderings (Lev 23:39-43; Neh 8:13-18). It was the occasion of the dedication of Solomon’s Temple (1Kgs 8), the public reading of the Torah (every seven years, Deut 31:10-11), and the future ingathering of all nations to Jerusalem to worship God (Zech 14:16).