light speed

Local religious festivities continue, this time is Sukkot/ Sukkah (still haven't worked out how to spell it) intended as a reminiscence of the type of fragile dwellings in which the ancient Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt.


Throughout the holiday the sukkah (temporary construction made in balconies or on the street) becomes the living area of the house, and all meals are eaten in it. On each day of the holiday, members of the household hold, and recite a blessings. According to Zechariah, in the messianic era Sukkot will become a universal festival and all nations will make pilgrimages annually to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast there. Originally it was a thanksgiving for the fruit harvest. Coming as it did at the completion of the harvest, Sukkot was regarded as a general thanksgiving for the bounty of nature in the year that had passed.

Photograph: Miriam Alster/EPA

 
For me so far it meant arriving to work at light speed! Not a single car in the streets!