🌿 בונים בית זמני מתחת לכוכבים: כל מה שכדאי לדעת על חג הסוכות תשפ"ז

In just a few days, on Friday evening, September 25, 2026, one of the happiest and most colorful holidays on the Jewish calendar begins: Sukkot. The holiday lasts seven days, until Friday evening, October 2, and is immediately followed by two more connected holidays, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Sukkot is one of three 'pilgrimage festivals,' along with Passover and Shavuot, when people in ancient times traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate together. The holiday actually has two meanings mixed together: it is a harvest festival that celebrates the end of the fall harvest season, and it also remembers the forty years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt, living in temporary shelters the whole time. The most recognizable Sukkot tradition is building a sukkah, a temporary hut. Its walls can be made from almost any material, but its roof, called s'chach, must be made from things that grew from the ground, like palm branches or bamboo, arranged loosely enough that you can see the stars through it at night. Throughout the seven days, many families eat meals, and some even sleep, inside the sukkah, to experience a small taste of what it felt like to live in a temporary, exposed home. Another beautiful custom involves the 'Four Species': a palm branch, myrtle, and willow bound together, plus a citrus fruit called an etrog. People hold and wave all four together during a special blessing each morning of the holiday. At the end of the seven days comes Shemini Atzeret, followed immediately by Simchat Torah, a joyful day full of dancing, when the yearly cycle of reading the Torah is completed and then started again from the very beginning.