Sukkot – The joy of fertility and the memory of nomadic life

From the beginning of human civilization, when humans began to cultivate the land and influence the quantity and quality of the food from which they would live, the fertility celebrations of the annual cycle and rain ceremonies for the new cycle became major events in many cultures. On Sukkot, the Hebrew-Jewish festival of fertility and rain, a central point in these celebrations is gratitude to the source of life, and a request for continued blessing from it, on the one hand, while on the other hand, the precision of man’s status in relation to this source. In this lecture we will see how this point is expressed at the universal human level, the national level, and the individual level, in a tour through the different layers of the holiday customs and meanings.

Yotam Yzraely is a researcher of religions and lecturer on issues of Judaism and culture. He is a doctoral student at the School of Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University.