Sukkot - Part 2 | Crossroads | Magdala

Sukkot is a Harvest feast: Sukkot occurs after the harvest has been completed and before the beginning of the new agricultural year. When summer is over, the final harvest is ready and in the Holy Land, each of the family joins in collecting the fruit of the land, the fruit God has provided for his people. For the olive harvest everyone joins in the exhausting but exhilarating work, stripping the trees of their fruit. Copious volumes of olives are collected and then crushed to extract the precious oil for cooking or fuel for the oil lamps or for anointing.

Sukkot and water: One of the daily ceremonies at Sukkot was the rite of the water libation. On the first morning of Sukkot a procession of priests went down to the pool of Siloam to bring up to the Temple a golden container of water sufficient to last throughout the seven days of the feast. The water was brought up with great ceremony. Pilgrims waved their lulavs as the priests carried the water around the altar. Psalms were recited. Then the priest on duty poured out the contents of two silver bowls: one held water and the other held wine as an expression of dependence upon God to pour out his blessing of rain upon the earth.

Sukkot and fire: A ceremony called the ‘Illumination of the Temple’ was performed during Sukkot which involved the ritual lighting of four golden oil-fed lamps in the Court of Women. These lamps were huge candelabras (seventy-five feet high) lighted in the Temple at night to remind the people of the pillar of fire that had guided Israel in their wilderness journey. The brilliance illuminated the entire city. In celebration, the holiest of Israel's men danced and sang psalms of joy and praise, before the Lord. This festival was a reminder that God had promised to send a light, the Light, to a sin-darkened world.

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