Sukkot (also called Feast of Tabernacles) is considered the most important of the seven feasts of Israel. It is a week-long celebration to commemorate a time when God dwelt with the Jewish people in the desert. It also looks forward to a time when God will dwell with us again in the Messianic kingdom.
We come together with family and friends, to eat, drink, and pray, in the Sukkah (a flimsy, roughly built, hut-like dwelling commanded by God in Leviticus 23).
We also invite guests, neighbors and even strangers to come and share a meal in the sukkah and celebrate God’s provision and blessing with us.
“You shall keep the festival of Sukkot for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and wine press. Rejoice at your festival – you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites and the foreigners, orphans and widows living among you.
For seven days you are to keep the festival for Adonai your God in the place Adonai Lord your God will choose, because Adonai your God will bless you in all your crops and all your work, so that you will be full of joy.” (Deuteronomy 16:13-16).
The blessing after the meal during the holiday of Sukkot says, “May God establish for us the fallen sukkah of David.” (sukkat David ha-nofalet)
Through the prophet Amos, God promised to raise up the fallen sukkah of David and rebuild it.
“When that day comes, I will raise up the fallen sukkah of David. I will close its gaps, raise up its ruins and rebuild it as it used to be, so that Israel can possess what is left of Edom and of all the nations bearing my name,” says Adonai who is doing this. (Amos 9:11-12)
When a home falls, it is almost impossible to rebuild. And even when it is rebuilt, it often looks and feels completely different than before. But when a sukkah falls, it can easily go back up, for the sukkah’s flimsiness allows it to be “rebuilt”.
The symbolism of the “fallen sukkah of David” is drawn from Amos (9:11), where the prophet describes the eventual restoration of David’s sukkah alongside the ingathering of Jewish exiles and great prosperity in the land of Israel. God is promising to restore the royal line of David.
Looking to the future, the final theme of Sukkot will be fulfilled when the “everyone remaining from all the nations that came to attack Yerushalayim will go up year to worship the King, Adonai-Tzvaot, and to keep the festival of Sukkot.” (Zechariah 14:16)
Standing with Israel 