A home for seven days
The sukkah is the heart of the festival. For seven days it is made a home: one eats in it, welcomes guests, and those who can even sleep beneath its light roof.
A dwelling
For seven days the sukkah becomes a home — recalling the booths in which the people dwelt in the desert under Heaven's protection. Meals move into it, and many sleep there too.
The schach
The roof of the sukkah — the schach — is made of cut branches or palm leaves. It must give more shade than light, yet the stars are seen through it.
Decorations
The sukkah is adorned with fruit, garlands, children's drawings and greenery — “noy sukkah,” the beauty of the mitzvah. So a temporary booth becomes festive.
Ushpizin
Each evening one of the seven ancestral guests is symbolically invited into the sukkah. And with them living guests too: Sukkot is unthinkable without hospitality.
A roof of branches through which the stars are seen — a lesson that true shelter is not in walls.