Sukkot 2026: A Guide to the Season of Our Rejoicing
Four days after the fast of Yom Kippur ends, Jewish families start building. Sukkot 5787 begins at sundown on 25 September 2026 and runs for a week - a holiday spent largely outdoors, in a temporary hut, eating.
Tradition calls it zman simchateinu, the season of our rejoicing. After the intensity of the preceding weeks, that is not an accident.
What a sukkah is
A sukkah is a temporary structure with at least three walls and a roof of cut vegetation - schach - laid loosely enough that you can see stars through it and rain can get in.
The impermanence is deliberate. The holiday commemorates the forty years of wandering after the Exodus, when the Israelites lived in temporary shelters. Every autumn, families leave solid houses and eat for a week in something that would not survive a storm.
The point lands differently depending on the year you have had. A structure that cannot protect you, in which you are commanded to rejoice, is a fairly pointed piece of theology.
The four species
Sukkot has a second central ritual: the arba minim, four plants held together and waved during prayers.
- Lulav - a palm frond
- Etrog - a citron, closely inspected for blemishes before purchase
- Hadassim - three myrtle branches
- Aravot - two willow branches
The traditional reading maps the four onto four kinds of people - those with learning and good deeds, one or the other, or neither - bound together and held as one. None is discarded.
Etrog selection is a genuine subculture. Buyers examine fruit with magnifying glasses, and prices vary wildly according to shape, skin and the presence of an intact pitam at the tip.
Hosting in a sukkah
Hospitality is central to the holiday. There is a custom of ushpizin - inviting symbolic guests from biblical history each night - and a corresponding practice of inviting actual guests as often as possible.
If you are hosting:
- Plan for cold after sunset, and have spare layers for guests who underestimate September
- Lighting matters - string lights are standard and make the space work after dark
- Food that survives being carried outside is worth more than food that photographs well
- Something will blow over. Weight the tablecloth.
If you are a guest
Bring something for the table - wine, dessert, or fruit are all standard. Dress warmer than you think you need to; sukkah meals run long and the temperature drops.
Practical note: unlike Rosh Hashanah, the middle days of Sukkot (chol hamoed) are semi-festive, and many restrictions lift. It is the week when families travel, visit, and take children out. If you are invited during chol hamoed, the atmosphere is considerably more relaxed.
What to wear
The first two days carry full holiday status and people dress accordingly. Chol hamoed is casual - this is a week of being outdoors with family, and the wardrobe reflects that.
Layering is the whole game. Our hoodies and sweatshirts cover the evening drop, and anything you wear in a sukkah should be something you do not mind smelling faintly of cut branches afterward.
Simchat Torah
Sukkot closes into Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah on 2-4 October - the day the annual Torah reading cycle finishes and immediately restarts, marked with dancing and, in most communities, a great deal of noise.
Since 2023, the date carries a second weight for Jewish communities worldwide. Many congregations now hold both things in the same day: the joy the holiday calls for, and the memory of what happened on it.
Chag Sameach - a joyful festival.
