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Beit HaMikdash

A family arriving for Sukkot

You bring your children to Jerusalem for the autumn festival.Reconstruction educational simulation: A choice this site made to draw or model something the sources do not fully specify. About 8 minutes
Reconstruction: night in the Women's Court during Sukkot, tall golden lamp-stands with ladders, barefoot elders dancing with torches, Levites with instruments on the fifteen curved steps, women watching from the balcony.

  1. Scene 1 of 7

    Booths on every roof

    Jerusalem is covered in huts roofed with branches. Your children carry a palm frond bound with myrtle and willow, and a citron. 'Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.'

  2. Scene 2 of 7 · The Great Altar

    Willows around the altar

    Tall willow branches from Motza stand around the altar, their tops bending over it. Each day the crowd circles it once, calling 'O Lord, save us'. On the seventh day, seven times.

  3. Scene 3 of 7 · The Great Altar

    The water

    A priest carries a golden flask of water from the Shiloach spring through the Water Gate. As he pours it on the altar the crowd shouts 'Raise your hand!' so everyone can see. Your children shout too.

  4. Scene 4 of 7

    The seventy bulls

    Over the week the altar receives seventy bulls. A teacher tells your children what the Talmud says: seventy, for the seventy nations of the world.

  5. Scene 5 of 7 · The Women's Court

    The night of lights

    After the first day, the Women's Court is transformed. Giant golden lamps, climbed by young priests on ladders, light every courtyard in the city. Your family watches from the balcony built for this night.

  6. Scene 6 of 7 · The Fifteen Steps

    Joy

    Pious men dance with torches. The Levites play on the fifteen steps with harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets. 'He who has not seen the Simchat Bet Hashoevah has never seen rejoicing in his life.'

  7. Scene 7 of 7 · The Nicanor Gate

    Dawn

    At cock-crow, trumpets. The procession descends to the eastern gate, turns back toward the Sanctuary and says: 'our eyes are turned to the Lord'.