All across Israel right now, balconies look a little different.
Wooden frames have gone up, branches cover makeshift roofs, and down on the streets, people who have no balcony have found whatever patch of space they can and built there. Our own sukkah—the temporary booth or shelter used during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles—stands six floors above the city on our balcony. We sit inside it, eat together, pray, look out over the lights below and take part in something Jewish families have been doing for generations. More than three thousand years after these instructions were given in Scripture, Israel is still living this feast.
But tucked inside God’s instructions for Sukkot is a command that may be harder to obey than building the sukkah itself: “You shall rejoice in your feast.” Not you may rejoice if life happens to be going well. Not rejoice when everything you prayed for has finally happened. God tells Israel to rejoice—and then He widens the circle: your sons and daughters, those within your household, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. Biblical joy was never meant to be a private luxury for people whose lives were going perfectly. God built room for joy right into the life of His people, and He told us to make room for others in it too.
That changes the way we understand Sukkot. Of course there are traditions surrounding the feast, and every detail carries meaning. Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 tell us how Israel was to keep these seven days. Yeshua Himself knew this feast and celebrated it. But if we become fascinated with all the details and miss the heart of what God is saying, we have missed something precious. Again and again, Scripture brings us back to joy. Stop your customary work. Gather together. Remember God’s provision. Eat. Give thanks. Rejoice.
That sounds simple until life gives us reasons not to.
Most of us know what it is to enter a season carrying something unresolved. There is a prayer that still has no answer. A relationship that is not where we hoped it would be. Something about the future that makes us uneasy. We can become so focused on what God has not yet done that we stop noticing what He has already placed around us. Sukkot interrupts that way of living. For seven days, God calls His people away from ordinary routines and says, in effect: look again. There is still goodness here. There is still provision here. I am still with you. Rejoice before Me.
And notice that God does not allow that joy to become self-contained. Deuteronomy says,
“You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter… the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates”
Deuteronomy 16:14
In other words, look around. Who might otherwise be standing outside the celebration? Who needs a place at the table? Who needs encouragement, company, generosity, or simply to know that someone remembered them? Sometimes one of the most biblical ways to celebrate what God has given us is to make sure His goodness reaches someone else.
This is one of the things we love about seeing Israel during Sukkot. Every sukkah looks a little different. Some are beautifully decorated on large balconies. Some are squeezed between buildings or put together on the pavement because there is nowhere else to build. Some are crowded with children and grandchildren; others are much quieter. Yet across the country, under temporary roofs and branches, the same ancient invitation is being heard again: come away from the ordinary for a little while. Remember God. Remember His faithfulness. And rejoice.
Perhaps that invitation is for you today too. You may not have a sukkah outside your home. You may be reading this thousands of miles from Israel. But you can still stop long enough to ask yourself: Have I become so occupied with what is missing that I have stopped seeing what God has already given me? And is there someone around me whom I can bring into that joy?
Sukkot reminds us that joy does not always arrive after every problem has been solved. Sometimes joy begins when, right in the middle of an unfinished life, we recognize again the faithfulness of the God who is still with us.
“You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter… the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates.”
Deuteronomy 16:14
Chag Sukkot Sameach—Happy Feast of Tabernacles,
Pastor Israel Pochtar
