Gentile here. Sukkot is coming up. How do Jews (any branch; Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, etc) typically observe it? I have some "Torah observant"/"Messianic" Christian friends who observe it every year by taking an 8 day camping trip, but I imagine that Jews observe it differently.

There are plenty of laws around it, they go into very minute detail about what is acceptable and what isn't. You can find a book on it if you're interested, there's more than can be easily summarized. Broad-strokes, walls can be mostly anything, open roof covered by plant matter (branches/leaves/wood poles are most common), must have at least three walls. There are pages and pages written about the dimensions, what constitutes a wall, how non-permanent does it have to be, etc.

Nothing special about building and tearing it down, just gotta make it according to specs. Often people will have permanent structures with an open or retractable roof, which they then top with leaves and branches come sukkot-time.

Has to be put up in advance, you're not allowed to even touch a lot of the parts of the sukkah after the holiday beings.

Origin of not doing work on the sabbath is partially biblical. The enumeration of what constitutes "work" and lengthy discussions related to it is rabbinical. I'm not quite sure the origin of the sabbath prohibitions extending to holidays, probably rabbinical. The first two days and last two days are proper holidays where work isn't permitted, middle part is an in-between.

If you're looking to extend the practices to a christian framework, much of the rabbinic origin is from the Mishnah, which was the oral tradition that was first put to writing from around 30 BCE through 200. So before Christ, as well as contemporaneously to when the gospels were written, to a bit after. Completed before the Council of Nicaea, which now that I think about it is somewhat similar to the Mishnah in that it tried to codify how to interpret vague parts of the bible and settle theological disagreements. Although, stereo-typically, the Council of Nicaea attempted definitely settle the disagreements, and the Mishnah just kept bringing up more questions, and any time there was a dispute the answer was "well, these guys do it this way, these other guys do it some other way, meanwhile some Rabbi brings up a bunch of specific scenarios that no one asked him about".

So Christ did most likely adhere to much of the laws and practices of the Mishnah, if that's what the goal is to emulate.

/r/Judaism Thread Parent