CU2-5

2:5 **Title:** Sukkot – End of fall harvest – Feast of Ingathering 1.  **Gain the attention of the learner.** Bring to class a pumpkin, Indian corn, and apples. Ask students to describe what these foods have in common. 2.  **Review relevant past learning.** Review the parts of the Asif celebration. We celebrate many holidays. Some holidays have seasonal significance. Some are borrowed from rituals observed from our neighbors. What holiday similarities can the students identify? 3.  **Present new material.** The beginning of the barley harvest in spring was marked by the festi­val of Passover and concluding with the harvest of the first fruit marked by Shavuot. The next and final harvest of the growing season of fruits and grains-in the subtropical cli­mate was obviously the end of the agricultural year. Although it was the seventh month by the older, primitive reckoning, life and nature had proclaimed a new “New Year.” This was the great Feast of Ingathering (__Asif__) which we now know as Succot.. (**//How the Jewish New Year Festival Came To Be,//** Excerpted from an article by Hershl Hartman) A major agricultural festival, Sukkot is also the third of the //shalosh regalim//, or three pilgrimage holidays, when it was the custom of Jews everywhere to converge onto Jerusalem every Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot to pay back to God part of the bounty of the harvest and to ensure future harvests. Sukkot also marks the end of a long harvest, the time of year when farmers finish their work. Traditionally, this was the time for grapes to be gathered and made into raisins or wine; for olives to be picked and pressed into oil; and fruits to either ripen, or be eaten or stored 4.  **Provide guided practice** Make four columns on the chalkboard; label each section for a season of the year. Distribute the Hebrew calendars. Which holidays occur during which season? Under the section list other activities unique to that season. What observations, can the students make about when the holidays are celebrated? 5.  **Provide independent practice** Food also has a season. The end of fall season is marked by the harvest. Ask students to search through the circulars, from the information in the circular, and find at least four items grown and harvested locally. (Teacher may have to help students determine what the seasons are for the foods)
 * Goals:** Students will review the occurrence and celebration of Sukkot and how it is derived from the pagan holiday of Asif. Students will review the practices during the times of the Temple with emphasis on rituals for payment for harvest, inducing rain and rekindling decadent sun.
 * Materials:** lined paper, pencils, construction paper, crayons, supermarket circulars (enough for every two children to share one), Hebrew calendars. Scroll with seasons and holidays from lesson 1.
 * Close the lesson ** Complete a page for the Holiday describing the harvest festival.