Sukkot Is Going To Change
Today is Day One of the seven-day biblical holiday of Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Ingathering, the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Temporary Shelters, and the Feast of Tabernacles. (A sukkah is a booth or temporary shelter. Sukkot is the Hebrew plural of sukkah—the English equivalent would seem to be sukkahs.)
Deuteronomy 16:13-15 commands the children of Israel to rejoice during Sukkot: “You shall rejoice in your feast . . .you shall be altogether joyful.”
The Bible doesn’t tell us how to build a sukkah. The very complex specifics of sukkah construction followed by today’s Jews are derived from the Talmud, especially in the tractate Sukkah, which contains elaborate instructions on how a sukkah should be built. The Bible itself doesn’t give us any specific instructions about how to build a sukkah, but it does tell us that during Sukkot all native Israelis must live in temporary shelters for seven days:
You must live in temporary shelters for seven days; every native citizen in Israel must live in temporary shelters, so that your future generations may know that I made the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.ʼ” Leviticus 23:42-43 (NET)
Today, Sukkot isn’t just celebrated by native-born Israelis―many American Jews and some American gentiles also celebrate Sukkot. (I don’t know what happens in other countries.) Most Americans don’t travel to Jerusalem in order to celebrate―they build their sukkahs here. But according to Zechariah, a day is coming all the nations―or perhaps representatives from all the nations―will be required to travel to Jerusalem to attend Sukkot to worship the God of the Bible and to celebrate Sukkot:
Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the LORD afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. Zechariah 14:16-19 (ESV)
To which I can only say (in Aramaic) Maranatha!
Margot Armer
