Wondering when is Sukkot in 2024? Still unsure about what the holiday celebrates? Here’s a rundown of everything you need to know about Sukkot, one of the Jewish Pilgrimage holidays, and when it is this year.
When is Sukkot 2024?
Sukkot begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei (five days after Yom Kippur) and is celebrated for seven days. It starts the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, and goes through the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024.
The first day (and first and second days in the Diaspora) are celebrated as full holidays with prohibitions against work. The following days are called Chol Hamoed (weekdays of the festival), during which work is generally allowed and observances of Sukkot continue. This is followed by Shemini Atzeret (the “Eighth Day of Assembly”) and Simchat Torah (“Rejoicing in Torah”), which are celebrated as one day in Israel and two days in the Diaspora.
What is Sukkot?
Sukkot is one of three Pilgrimage Festivals (major holidays mentioned in the Torah on which Jews would travel to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem). The other two Pilgrimage Festivals are Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Feast of Weeks). Although Sukkot is the most common name of this holiday, it is also called Chag Ha-asif (“the Feast of Ingathering”). This refers to rejoicing and thanking God in the period after the crops had been harvested. In Yiddish the holiday is often referred to as “Sukkus,” and many Jews of Ashkenazi descent pronounce it that way.
Sukkot means “booths” or “huts” in Hebrew and is named for the temporary structures in which Jews “dwell” during the holiday. Meals are eaten in the sukkah, and many choose to sleep, read and hang out in them as well. According to a tradition from the Talmud, the sukkah represents the portable huts or tabernacles in which the Israelites lived during the 40 years they wandered the desert.
At the same time, Sukkot is a holiday of vulnerability and insecurity, recalling the fragile condition of the Israelites wandering in the desert and their total reliance on God.
