Sukkot

Learn the basics about this week-long harvest festival.

Sukkot begins at sundown on Sunday, September 23, 2018 and ends at sundown on Sunday, September 30, 2018.

Sukkot (or booth in Hebrew) is the Jewish festival of booths. This holiday begins five days after Yom Kippur in which Jews are supposed to dwell in booths for an entire week. The booth or sukkah represent the huts where the Israelites lived in during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. The most common rituals of Sukkot include building a sukkah, inviting guests into your sukkah, and holding and shaking four species of plants including a palm, myrtle, willow (lulav in Hebrew) and citro (etrog in Hebrew). Explore our resources below to learn about this harvest festival.

The LEGO® Sukkot Movie

By Evan Wolkenstein

It’s a Lego® Sukkot stop motion animation and we couldn’t be more geeked out about it! Learn the basics of the Jewish holiday called Sukkot, including festival huts, lulavs, etrogs, foods, prayers and the spiritual meaning of all the unique rituals. This stop motion animation is a great intro to the holiday for Jews and non Jews alike – make it part of your holiday emails and party invitations, or show it to your kids to get them inspired about building their own sukkahs this year!

This piece was written and narrated by Evan Wolkenstein, a beloved BimBam contributor and teacher of Tanach. For more Sukkot learning, check out:

  • Sukkot: Back to Basics – a music video based on the book of Kohelet, or Ecclesiastes, which is customarily read during the holiday of Sukkot
  • How to Build a Sukkah – a beatbox How To video made in collaboration with Moishe House

 

Yes! We have a teachers’ guide available for this video. It’s a rich, creative set of LEGO® building activities that have media production components baked in as well. While you don’t need technology to do these activities, you do need LEGO bricks – enough for your students to build some Sukkot themed objects together. If your school doesn’t have these already in storage somewhere, you will want to hit some thrift shops, or, you’ll need to be creative about working with other building materials like paint and popsicle sticks, beads, or even vegetables.

This guide will help you prepare either a one hour special session, or three hour session (or series of 1 hour sessions) for a group of students. We recommend working with children in 3rd grade and up on these activities, but your mileage will vary.

Another great way to use this video is in your family’s celebration – check out this Sukkot @Home Parent Guide from Jewish LearningWorks in San Francisco. Check it out here.

Do note that LEGO®is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorize or endorse this site.

LEGO Sukkot Teachers’ Guide

Sukkot: Back to Basics

By Hadara Levin Areddy

Sukkot is the happiest Jewish holiday, but it’s traditional to read Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), which can get pretty gloomy! Hadara Levin-Areddy tells the story from King Solomon’s point of view and connects the dots from sadness to joy.

download icon

Sukkot Lyrics

free download

download icon

Sukkot Source Sheet

free download

download icon

Back to Basics (The Sukkot Song) MP3

free download

Sukkot Back to Basics Lesson Guide

Learn How to Build a Sukkah with Moishe House

By Joshua Walters

Learn how to build a sukkah with this handy guide made with Moishe House.

Thanks for this Sukkah Guide

Thank you to our friends at Moishe House for helping create this animated How to Make a Sukkah guide. Additional thanks to Katherine Bruce, Dr. Zvi Bellin, Elliot Cowan, Matthue Roth, Sarah Lefton, Moishe House East Bay, Rachel Thompson, Taglit Birthright Israel, The Jewish New Media Innovation Foundation, The Jim Joseph Foundation, Righteous Persons Foundation, The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Jewish Funders Network and Joshua Walters.

Subscribe to our e-Newsletter

Keep up to date with the latest videos and news from BimBam