Special holiday reading for Sukkot on 15 Tisrei, 5764 - October 11, 2003 Sukkot Aleph: Holiday Torah reading Leviticus 22:26 to 23:44; Haftarah: Zechariah 14:1-21; Brit Chadashah: Revelation 21:1-27; 22:1-21


The Bagel: Ultimate Sukkah. The Torah reading recounts all of the holidays in the Biblical Jewish calendar. It is a reminder that Sukkot is the culmination of the yearly cycle in a sense. It is like the American holiday of Thanksgiving, which was designed to thank G-d for the bountiful harvest against the coming winter. The harvest is regarded as the close of the year. The irony is that Sukkot's original context was the desert, hardly a place of bountiful harvest. But the tent living of the Israelite in the desert was nevertheless bountiful. Adonay brought down bread out of heaven for every day. The shoes of the desert wanderers lasted forty years. The tent existence was temporary. The holy place was a tent. The Mishkhan or Tabernacle housed the Shekinah. G-d's Presence dwelt in a holy Sukkah. When the First Temple was completed by Solomon, then a permanent dwelling place was built. Jerusalem, the place where G-d chose to place His name there, became the city of the Temple.

The context of Zechariah is after the destruction of the First Temple and after the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, but there was an incomplete temple. The Haftarah reading speaks of that ultimate Sukkot in the future, in the Day of Redemption. In that day, instead of New York or Geneva, Jerusalem will be headquarters of the truly united nations. It won't just be an inscription on the wall of the building, but an international reality: "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up Sword against nation; They shall never again know war" (Isaiah 2:4 Tanakh, JPS). The reason is the kingly rule of the Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem. He will require the nations to comply. One of those requirements will be the international Sukkot festival that will be held every year in Jerusalem:

"All who survive of all those nations that came up against Jerusalem shall make a pilgrimage year by year to bow low to the King LORD of Hosts and to observe the Feast of Booths. Any of the earth's communities that does not make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to bow low to the King LORD of Hosts shall receive no rain. However, if the community of Egypt does not make this pilgrimage, it shall not be visited by the same affliction with which the LORD will strike the other nations that do not come up to observe the Feast of Booths" (Zechariah 14:16-18 Tanakh, JPS).

"And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people. And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard no more. 'No longer will babies die when only a few days old. No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life. No longer will people be considered old at one hundred! Only sinners will die that young'" (Isaiah 65:18-20 NLT)!

"....On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will anything be cursed. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. And there will be no night there-- no need for lamps or sun-- for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever" (Revelation 22:2-5 NLT).