Each week our Explorers class will learn about a particular holiday as they work their way through a year of world religions study with the curriculum, Holidays and Holy Days.
This past Sunday the kids studied the Jewish holiday of Sukkot ("sue-COAT") Sukkot is an eight-day "Festival of Booths," one of three agricultural celebrations in the Jewish calendar. Celebrating God's forgiveness, it is considered a mitzvah ("commandment") to be joyful during Sukkot. In advance of the festival, one builds a shelter outdoors called a "sukkah" (rhymes with "Book-ah"). Throughout the festival, families "dwell" in their sukkah, eating meals, studying, playing and even sleeping outside in the sukkah as long ago families lived in their own fragile dwellings in the desert. Decorated with items from the harvest, the sukkah is both practical and beautiful.
Driving around parts of Baltimore, one can see these temporary shelters dotting the landscape of some neighborhoods. The last day of Sukkot this year will be Friday, Oct. 9.
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