Can i work on sukkot

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Download Article Explore this Article parts. Tips and Warnings. Things You'll Need. Related Articles. Part 1. Get in the Sukkot mindset. Sukkot is a joyous holiday and a time of great celebration for all Jews!

In fact, Sukkot is so closely associated with happy emotions that traditional sources often call it Z'man Simchateinu Hebrew:"the Season of our Rejoicing". For the seven days of Sukkot, Jews are encouraged to celebrate God's role in their lives and rejoice in the good fortune of the past year.

Sukkot should a happy time spent with your friends and family, so be ready to let go of any negative thoughts or feelings in preparation for the holiday. Aim to be upbeat, positive, and thankful to God for the entire week. Build a Sukkah. As noted above, one of the most memorable, remarkable traditions of Sukkot is the building of a Sukkah.. This lightly-constructed booth can be made from many different types of materials as long as it is able to stand up to the wind.

Sukkah are usually decorated on the inside with drawings and religious symbols. For more information on building a Sukkah, see the appropriate section below. In the book of Leviticus, Jews are instructed to dwell in the Sukkah for all seven days of the Sukkot holiday. In a modern context, most take this to mean centering family gatherings around the sukkah and eating meals inside it, though some devout Jews will even sleep in it. Avoid work for the first two days of Sukkot. Though the Sukkot holiday lasts for about 7 to 8 days, the first two days of the holiday are especially blessed.

On these days, much like on Shabbat, most forms of work are to be avoided as a show of reverence to God. Specifically, all activities normally forbidden on Shabbat are also forbidden on the first two days of Sukkot with the exception of cooking, baking, transferring fire, and carrying things around.

The following five days are Chol Hamoed Hebrew: "intermediate days" , during which work is permitted. Many common activities, like writing, sewing, cooking, braiding hair, and even watering plants are traditionally forbidden on Shabbat.

Say Hallel prayers every day of Sukkot. During Sukkot, the ordinary morning, evening and afternoon prayers are supplemented with additional ones to mark the holiday. The exact prayers you'll need to say will vary depending on what day it is — the first two special days and the following five intermediate days have their own prayers. However, traditionally, on every day of Sukkot after the morning prayer, the complete Hallel Hebrew: "praise" prayer.

This prayer is the verbatim text of Psalms Wave the lulav and etrog. Besides building and dwelling in a Sukkah, this is the most important holiday tradition for Sukkot. On the first day of Sukkot, the observers of the holiday ritually wave a collection of branches, including the lulav and the etrog in all directions.

A lulav is a bouquet made from a single palm leaf, two willow branches and three myrtle branches, held together by woven leaves. An etrog is a citron, a lemon-like fruit grown in Israel. The etrog must have the stigma stem to make it kosher. To perform the ritual, hold the lulav in your right hand and the etrog in your left, say a Bracha blessing over them, then shake them in the six directions: north, south, east, west, up, and down, symbolizing God's presence everywhere.

Enjoy plenty of other Sukkot traditions. Building the Sukkah and performing the branch-waving ritual are undoubtedly the two most important, well-known Sukkot traditions, but they're far from the only ones. Sukkot is a holiday with many traditions - too many to list here.

These often vary from family to family and locale to locale, so feel free to research the Sukkot traditions of the world as you're planning your holiday. Below are just a few ideas you might want to consider for your Sukkot celebration: Spend time eating meals and camping out in the Sukkah.

Tell stories from scripture, especially those from the 40 years the Israelites spent in the desert. When you purchase a lulav and etrog usually through your synagogue or a local Jewish Community Center , With these four species in hand, one recites a blessing and waves the species in all six directions east, south, west, north, up and down , symbolizing the fact that G-d is everywhere.

Detailed instructions for this ritual can be found under Sukkot Blessings. The four species are also held and waved during the Hallel prayer in religious services, and are held during processions around the bimah the pedestal where the Torah is read called hakafot each day during the holiday. These processions commemorate similar processions around the altar of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

This part of the service is known as Hoshanot, because while the procession is made, we recite a prayer with the refrain, "Hosha na! On the seventh day of Sukkot, seven circuits are made. For this reason, the seventh day of Sukkot is known as Hoshanah Rabbah the great Hoshanah.

After the circuits on Hoshanah Rabbah, we beat the willow branches against the floor five times, shaking loose some or all of the remaining leaves. A number of explanations are offered for this unusual beating practice, but the primary reason seems to be agricultural: the rainy season in Israel begins in the fall, and the leaves falling from the willow branch symbolize our desire for beneficial rainfall.

The following day Shemini Atzeret , we begin adding a line about rain to the thrice-daily Shemoneh Esrei prayer. Why are these four plants used instead of other plants? There are two primary explanations of the symbolic significance of these plants: that they represent different parts of the body, or that they represent different kinds of Jews.

According to the first interpretation, the long straight palm branch represents the spine. The myrtle leaf, which is a small oval, represents the eye. The willow leaf, a long oval, represents the mouth, and the etrog fruit represents the heart. All of these parts have the potential to be used for sin, but should join together in the performance of mitzvot commandments. According to the second interpretation, the etrog, which has both a pleasing taste and a pleasing scent, represents Jews who have achieved both knowledge of Torah and performance of mitzvot.

The palm branch, which produces tasty fruit, but has no scent, represents Jews who have knowledge of Torah but are lacking in mitzvot. The myrtle leaf, which has a strong scent but no taste, represents Jews who perform mitzvot but have little knowledge of Torah. Gotta keep the slate clean. What a lovely break this was, and it made it really feel like a yontif holiday! I normally keep my laptop constantly running at work, and I respond to dozens of emails a day about meetings, publicity, my book being edited, etc.

I am a real slave to technology, and for those 2 days, I really embraced the aspects of observance that force us to focus on ourselves, and not on the things we distract ourselves with. Spanning over a week, the holiday has a long history with many aspects that hold a significant place in Jewish culture.

Also known as Zman Simhatenu , or the time of celebration, the holiday of Sukkot is biblical in origin and is described in the Book of Numbers. The holiday is marked as one of the three pilgrimage festivals shalosh regalim , along with Passover and Shavuot, where in ancient times, Jews would travel to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices at the Temple. The festival is thought by some to be meant to remember how after the Exodus from Egypt, the Jews traveled through the desert. While the traditional sacrifices offered on the holiday have stopped with the destruction of the Temple, many other rituals live on to this day.

Chief among them is the practice of sitting and eating in the sukkah, an outdoor temporary structure, and the practice of shaking the lulav palm frond along with three other botanical species. Both are quintessential aspects of the holiday, and are done worldwide. Famously, the spiritual significance of the sukkah and lulav were on display in the Israeli film Ushpizin , named after a common Sukkot custom, where a financially struggling Hassid in Jerusalem tries to celebrate the holiday.

The act of eating in the sukkah is also something of a communal rite, with it being traditional in many Jewish communities around the world to go on "sukkah hops" where families visit other sukkahs in the community. Another significant part of the holiday is Birkat Kohanim the priests' blessing. This is something done every festival in the Diaspora and done regularly in Israel, where the Kohanim will go to the front of the synagogue for the priestly blessing after removing their shoes and hiding their faces and hands under their tallit prayer shawl.

However, it is customary for massive crowds to flock to the Western Wall during Hol HaMoed the intermediate days of the festival for mass prayer services, with Birkat Kohanim being a key moment. But there is more to the holiday than just that. The seventh day of Sukkot is known as Hoshanah Rabah great salvation. This day is seen by many as a kind of continuation of the repentance of the High Holy Days, and is marked by the famous smacking of the willow branches during prayer services.

The final day of Sukkot is known as Shmini Atzeret eight day of gathering , also known as Simhat Torah Torah rejoicing , though some consider it a separate holiday. Here, the focus is not on the lulav and sukkah, but rather on the Torah itself, marking the completion of another year of reading all five books of the Torah and the beginning of a new cycle.

Regarding the sukkah, the structure is built outdoors, often on the night after Yom Kippur. The rules are extensively discussed in the Talmud and rabbinic literature, but in brief summation, the structure must have at least two-and-a-half walls around three feet in height, with the "half" part needing to be at minimum 3. The walls themselves can be constructed of any material in theory, though some halachic authorities such as Rabbi Ovadia Yosef have said that materials like canvas should not be used as the sukkah should not sway in the breeze.

Its roof, however, must be made of organic material. This roofing, known as s'chach , is specifically required to be organic material no longer connected to the ground, such as palm fronds or bamboo. Though it covers the sukkah, there must be space between it so as to ensure one can see the sky; a sukkah constructed under another roof or tree is not considered kosher.