Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Universal Festival of Sukkos

On the festival of Sukkos (Booths) we strive to reveal God’s Kingship to all humanity, even through all seventy languages of the non-Jewish nations. This is the symbolic meaning of the seventy bulls that were sacrificed in the Holy Temple during the seven days of Sukkos on behalf of the non-Jewish nations. This, too, is why we conclude the prayers associated with the rite of the lulav (palm branch) and its hakafos (procession in the synagogue) with the verse: “Thus all nations may come to know that the Lord is God; there is no other” (I Kings 8:60) (Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Likkutei Moharan I, 33, end)