What is Sukkot, and why are my Jewish neighbors eating in a shack?

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What is Sukkot, and why are my Jewish neighbors eating in a shack?

 

By Lauren Markoe

 

Religion News Service September 30, 2015

Sukkot, also known as the Festival of Booths, began this year at sundown Sunday. What is this holiday that makes Jews eat their meals al fresco?

 

Why are my Jewish neighbors eating in a little house in their yard this week?

 

That’s a sukkah they’ve constructed for Sukkot, a Jewish holiday that celebrates the harvest and commemorates the Israelites’ wandering in the desert for 40 years after their liberation from slavery. Sukkahs approximate the temporary dwellings they lived in before they reached the Promised Land.

 

“For a seven-day period you shall live in booths,” God commands in Leviticus 23:42-43. “In order that your ensuing generations should know that I had the children of Israel live in booths when I took them out of the land of Egypt.”