Sukkot I Festival of Booths, Day 1 סוּכּוֹת א׳

Five days after the Day of Atonement, the Festival of Booths begins. The festival starts with a yom tov Sabbath on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and continues for seven days. The Hebrew name of the festival is Sukkot, a word often translated into English as “tabernacles” or “booths.” The name is derived from the commandment that requires Jewish people to dwell in temporary shelters for the duration of the festival as a reminder of the post-exodus years when Israel lived in huts and booths in the wilderness.

The rabbis who ordained the reading cycle prescribed Zechariah 14 for Haftarat Sukkot because it explicitly mentions the Festival of Sukkot. Another tradition notes that the war of Gog and Magog described in Zechariah 14 will come to its culmination during the Festival of Sukkot. The haftarah also preserves the Temple’s ritual associations between Sukkot and annual rainfall.