The Feasts of Booths, known as Sukkot, is a seven-day feast that remembers when the Israelites dwelled in the desert in tents as they crossed the wilderness with Moses. Most traditional Jews each build a small open-roofed booth-like structure to dwell in for this week-long feast. The actual booth can be constructed out of any material, but the roof needs to be organic and partially open to the sky. The roof of the booth is usually made of green branches, and in order for the stars to be seen at night, the leafy covering doesn’t completely cover the booth. In Hebrew, Sukkot means booth or hut.

Before the Romans destroyed the Temple, Sukkot was once the most important Jewish festival, even more than Passover and the High Holy Days. Sukkot is a Biblical pilgrimage festival where traditionally the Jewish people make a journey to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was so overcrowded with pilgrims that temporary wooden booths were built on every rooftop, in every alley, and along ever street. The annual cycle of readings is completed on this day, and the closing lines of Deuteronomy and the opening lines of Genesis are read. 

The Four Species

Although the booths are meant to eat meal in remembrance of how God provided for the Israelites in the desert, Jews spent time relaxing, entertaining guest and even sleeping in the booths. On each of the seven days of Sukkot, the Jewish people take out four species of plants (a date, a palm branch, a willow branch, and citrus fruit) and shake them in a specific way.  The Four Species are said to be symbolic of the four categories of plants that grow in Israel, those being plants with good taste & fragrance, plants with good taste & no fragrance, plants with good fragrance & no taste, and plants with neither good taste nor fragrance.

In the United States, most Jews dance in the synagogue carrying scrolls of the Torah in their arms and in Israel the dancing is done in streets and this is one most colorful of all Israeli Jewish customs. 

In the New Covenant

Only one time was the Feast of Booths mentioned on the New Covenant.

"Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near…’Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.’ Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee. But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He himself also went up, not publicly, but as if in secret."
- John 7:2-10