Praying with a giant lulav and etrog at the Kotel (Western Wall) in Jerusalem, Israel, on Sukkot

We are at Newtown Synagogue over the Festival of Sukkot.  Rabbi Ben will be leading the services. If you don’t have anywhere to go (or even if you do) you are welcome to join us at the Synagogue on Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 6:30pm and Thursday and Friday 9:30am.

There are two main mitzvot on Sukkot:

1. To dwell in the Sukkah. This means eating and sleeping in the Sukkah. Sukkah is one of the few mitzvot that envelopes the entire body. It is awesome, because just sitting in the Sukkah gets us a mitzvah. This is not the case with most other mitzvot. You can hold matzah all day long, but unless you eat it there is no mitzvah. Thus we try to spend as much time in the Sukkah as possible. You can read a book all afternoon in the Sukkah, and every second you are getting a mitzvah!

2. To shake the four species: Lulav, Etrog, Hadassim, Aravot.  There is so much symbolized in these four species of vegetation. One idea, is that they symbolize the four different types of Jews. With the four species,  some have smell, some have taste, one has both, and one has neither.  The same with Jews. Some have many good deeds and Torah study, some have one or the other, and some have neither. On Sukkot we all come together. We need everyone.

Chag  Sameach!