Sukkot or Sukkos is the Jewish harvest festival. This holiday takes place on the 15th of the month of Tishrei (sometime between late September to late October), and occurs on the full moon (the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar and many of our holidays start on the full moon).
The word sukkot literally means “booth” or “tabernacle” and the holiday is often referred to as the Feast of Tabernacles. After the exodus from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites wandered in the dessert for 40 years and lived in sparse and temporary dwellings called “sukkot” –the holiday is to commemorate this period.
Sukkot is in fact a seven day holiday (eight in the diaspora). The first and second days are sabbath-like in observance (In Hebrew this type of day is referred to as yom tov , which literally means, good day). The eighth day of Sukkot is called Shemini Atzeret (the word Shemini is a derivative of the word eight in Hebrew which is sh’mona). Shemini Atzeret literally means “the Eighth [day] of Assembly.”
The holiday immediately following Sukkot in the Diaspora is Simchat Torah (or, “Joy of the Torah”). In Israel, Simchat Torah is celebrated on Shemini Atzeret –are you following this? It’s a bit complicated, even if you are Jewish.
We eat in the sukkah (or booth) during Succot, to celebrate the harvest, and we hang all sorts of beautiful gourds and such to decorate it. We also recite blessings over the lulav and etrog.
- Bubby’s Cucumber Salad
- Cabbage Orange Salad
- Rosemary Apple Chicken
- Oven Roasted Broccoli
- Spinach Cake
- Acorn Squash with Cranberry Apple Stuffing
- Paleo Honey Cake
- Paleo Pumpkin Bread
What are you serving for Sukkot? What else do any of you want to share about your experiences with this amazing holiday?
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Rivka Freeman says
Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah is a completely new holiday that’s why we bless it Shehechianu. Love your Vegan Pareve Recipes
Elana says
Hi Elana,
Here in Jerusalem yellow peaches were in season for the first time this summer, so I made your peach almond ice cream, I doubled it and left out the stevia. AMAZING!
BTW for anyone who didnt leave time to squeeze the fresh almond milk, it came out to about 3/4 cup for one recipe.
I also always make the date espresso bars with my kids, no stevia or agave needed either, and we press it into small chocolate molds and call them “tomorrow toffees” (tomorrow as in “tamaro, tamar is date in hebrew)
And lastly we made non dairy caramels – we adapted a recipe from 101 cookbooks
1 Cup honey
1 Cup almond milk
1/2 Cup coconut oil
heat constantly stirring until it hits 248 degrees, remove from heat, stir in 1 tsp vanilla and pinch of salt, pour into mold, let set and cut into squares with greased knife.
we dipped ours into 72% melted chocolate – Delicious!!!