קריאהThe readingLeviticus 22:26-23:44 · all of it in the booklet
What each aliyah says, with its page in the booklet. The text itself is on Sefaria.
First Aliyah
An animal offering must remain with its mother for seven days before it may be brought as a korban (sacrifice), and a mother and its young may not be slaughtered on the same day, teaching sensitivity toward living creatures; a thanksgiving offering must be eaten on the day it is brought, and Yisra'el is commanded to observe the mitzvot (commandments) faithfully so as not to desecrate but rather sanctify Hashem's name, in gratitude for the redemption from Mitzrayim (Egypt).
Second Aliyah
Shabbat is listed among the moadim (appointed festivals) of the Lord, teaching that the weekly day of rest holds the same sanctity as a holy gathering, observed through cessation of work in every dwelling place. By placing Shabbat at the head of the festival calendar, the Torah establishes it as the foundation and paradigm for all the holy times that follow.
Third Aliyah
Pesach (Passover) is established as one of the Lord's appointed mo'adim (festivals), beginning on the fourteenth day of the first month with the paschal offering, followed by the seven-day Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread) during which chametz (leaven) is forbidden. Both the first and seventh days of this festival are designated as mikra kodesh (holy gatherings) marked by rest from melacha (servile work) and the bringing of an offering made by fire to the Lord.
Fourth Aliyah
Bringing the omer (sheaf offering) of the new barley harvest to the kohen (priest), who waves it before the Lord on the day after the Shabbat, accompanied by a lamb for an olah (burnt offering), a minchah (meal offering) of fine flour with oil, and a nesech (drink offering) of wine, permits the new grain to be eaten; before this offering is brought, none of the new harvest—bread, roasted kernels, or fresh ears—may be consumed, and this statute is binding for all generations wherever the people dwell.
Fifth Aliyah
Counting forty-nine days from the ῾omer (sheaf offering) culminates in Shavuot on the fiftieth day, marked by bringing two leavened loaves and accompanying burnt, sin, and peace offerings as firstfruits to the Lord, along with a holy convocation on which no servile work is done. This festival of harvest is joined to the mitzvah (commandment) of leaving the corners of the field and gleanings for the poor and the stranger, teaching that gratitude for abundance must be paired with generosity toward those in need.
Sixth Aliyah
Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh month, is marked as a sabbath of horn-blowing and holy gathering, while Yom Kippur, the tenth day, is set apart as a day of atonement requiring affliction of soul and complete cessation from work, on pain of being cut off from the people. This solemn fast is to be kept from the evening of the ninth day through the following evening, as an everlasting statute throughout the generations.
Seventh Aliyah
Sukkot (the feast of booths) is established for seven days beginning the fifteenth of the seventh month, marked by holy gatherings, offerings made by fire, the taking of the four species—hadar fruit (citron), palm branches, thick-leaved boughs, and willows—and rejoicing before the Lord, followed by an eighth day of solemn assembly. Dwelling in booths for seven days serves as a perpetual statute so future generations will remember that the Lord housed the children of Yisra᾽el in booths after bringing them out of Miżrayim (Egypt).
Maftir
This passage describes the Musaf (additional) offerings brought on the first day of Sukkot, the festival beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Thirteen bullocks, two rams, and fourteen lambs are offered as burnt offerings, along with their accompanying meal and drink offerings, plus a goat as a sin offering, all in addition to the daily continual offering. The elaborate scale of these korbanot (sacrifices) reflects the joy and holiness of the festival, as the Torah commands a seven-day celebration marked by cessation from servile work and abundant offerings to the Lord.
Haftarah
In the great day of the Lord, God will wage war against the nations besieging Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), splitting the Mount of Olives and delivering the city, after which the Lord shall be King over all the earth and His Name One, with all surviving nations ascending yearly to worship Him and observe the festival of Sukkot. On that day all things, even the bells of horses and every pot in Yerushalayim and Yehuda, shall be rendered holy to the Lord, with no more merchants in the House of the Lord of hosts.
מדרשMidrash5 teachings
The classic midrashim on the reading.
Vayikra Rabbah 27:1
Righteousness and judgment are portrayed through the imagery of mighty mountains and vast depths: the tzaddikim (righteous), like fruitful mountains, produce merit for themselves and others and receive boundless reward, while the wicked, like the unfruitful depths, harm themselves and others and face unbounded punishment; yet tzedakah (charity/righteousness) can suppress harsh judgment as mountains suppress the deep. The midrash further illustrates through varied stories and expositions (Rabbi Yishmael, Rabbi Akiva, Alexander of Macedonia's encounters, etc.) that God's ways of reward and retribution, though sometimes puzzling, are ultimately just and often intertwined—even the survival of humanity is bound up with the merit of animals, as symbolized by the parallel eighth-day laws of circumcision for man and acceptance as an offering for animal, both stated in this week's verse.
Vayikra Rabbah 28:1
This midrash contrasts human toil "under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:3) with divine assistance, noting that a debate over Ecclesiastes' seemingly heretical implications was resolved once its true point emerged: mundane striving alone yields no lasting advantage, but the toil of Torah and mitzvot (good deeds/commandments) does. The Rabbis illustrate this with Rabbi Yanai's example that God does virtually all the work in producing food through nature, yet asks only the modest wage of the omer offering, teaching that human effort is minor compared to Divine provision, and gratitude is expressed through the simple act of bringing the first sheaf to the kohen (priest).
Vayikra Rabbah 29:1
This passage teaches that Rosh HaShana, the first day of the seventh month, corresponds to the anniversary of the creation and judgment of Adam, whose own trial and pardon on that day become a paradigm for all future generations. Just as Adam sinned yet emerged with a pardon on that very day, so too his descendants stand in judgment before God each Rosh HaShana with the assurance of divine mercy and forgiveness. The midrash thus frames Rosh HaShana as a day of universal judgment for all nations, but one rooted in the model of compassion shown to Adam at the world's very beginning.
Vayikra Rabbah 30:12
The four species (esrog, lulav, hadassim, aravos) represent the different types within Israel—those with both Torah and good deeds, those with only one, and those with neither. Since none can be eliminated, the Holy One commands that they be bound together as one, so that all Israel atone for and complement one another, and it is precisely through this unity that God's greatness is elevated on earth.
Sifra, Emor, Chapter 17 11
The Sifra links the mitzvah (commandment) of dwelling in the succah (booth) during Sukkot to the verse in Nechemiah describing Ezra's instructions for building succoth from various tree branches, connecting this practice to Vayikra 23:43. It records a dispute between R. Eliezer, who holds that the succoth in which the Israelites dwelt in the desert were actual physical booths, and R. Akiva, who maintains they were clouds of glory (Divine protective clouds). The passage concludes that, regardless of this dispute, the succah itself serves as a reminder of the exodus from Egypt.
חסידותFrom the Chassidic Courts5 teachings
One teaching from each court with something to say on Sukkot I, most of them in English nowhere else.
Ohev Yisrael
The lulav's four species reflect the Name Havayah with a kamatz, representing a chesed (loving-kindness) that is still constricted; through the hakafot (circuits) and rejoicing of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, that same Name is revocalized with a patach, causing the chesed to spread forth into all worlds and powers, ultimately meriting Israel access to the Tree of Life.
Zera Kodesh
Dwelling in the sukkah induces profound hachna'ah (self-abasement/humility), reminding a person that his existence is fleeting like a passing shadow and reducing him to a sense of ayin (nothingness) — the very state from which Creation itself emerged; through this humility, following the model of Avraham who leaned on the "tree of the sukkah," one draws down chassadim (acts of lovingkindness) that sweeten the dinim (judgments) inherent in all the middot (attributes), transforming severity into overflowing kindness for Israel throughout all four worlds while directing judgment instead toward Israel's enemies.
Peri Tzadik
The sukkah's purpose is not merely a remembrance but a vehicle for da'at (inner knowledge/awareness) to enter the heart permanently, granting Yisrael, like Yaakov, protection from the yetzer hara (evil inclination) and yishrut lev (uprightness of heart), which alone brings true simchah (joy). This mutual joy—the Holy One rejoicing with Yisrael through yirah (fear/awe) and Yisrael rejoicing with Him through an upright heart at rest from inner battle—is why Sukkot is called z'man simchateinu (the season of our rejoicing).
Beit Aharon
The sukkah represents God's protective shelter over Israel, teaching that even though hostile forces—symbolized by the ancient nations and the sitra achra (forces of evil)—constantly dwell alongside Israel seeking to draw from and overpower its holiness, God's chesed (kindness) ensures they can never succeed. "L'ma'an yedu doroteichem" thus means that these very forces that dwell beside Israel must know that Israel remains eternally sheltered and unconquerable under Divine protection.
Sefat Emet
The sukkah embodies gerut (spiritual wandering/exile), recalling how the beginning of the Exodus—leaving nature entirely to follow God into the wilderness—created a lasting tikkun (rectification) for all generations; so too, immediately after the days of teshuvah (repentance), Sukkot renews this power, drawing us to bind ourselves to the root of the Avot (Patriarchs) and elevating our desires from worldly "dunghills" into ahavah (love) of God, seating us among the nedivim (noble ones) together with the ushpizin (supernal guests).
ברסלבBreslov3 teachings
Likutei Moharan 30
This lesson opens with a cryptic Aramaic riddle-dialogue from the Talmud about a knife's "furrow," an ass's horn, eggs, and cheeses, which Rebbe Nachman uses as a coded map for the entire teaching. The core idea: Divine knowledge (Elokut) cannot be grasped except through many tzimtzumim (contractions), as higher intellect is clothed in lower intellect—like a teacher who must introduce preliminary concepts (the "roundabout" sichliyot) before the true intended lesson (the mechuvan). This lower intellect corresponds to chochmah tata'ah (lower wisdom)—the malchut (kingship/sovereignty) that governs each world, symbolized by black hair (she'arot) framing and focusing the eye, enabling vision of grand things, as in "black am I, but comely." Access to this lower wisdom requards being a soneh betza (hater of money), for love of money corrupts it into sitra achra (the other side), causing malchut dekedushah (holy sovereignty) to fall into exile under the four kingdoms. Abraham, embodiment of chesed (kindness) and hatred of money, models how to "cut" and elevate this fallen malchut—achieved through tochachah (rebuke), which reveals chochmah, which in turn reveals chesed. Receiving rebuke, even when delivered with apparent bizayon (contempt), is essential, since tzaddikim absorb the confusion (bilbulim) hidden within our very tefillot (prayers). The tzaddik discerns each person's inner state through their ozut (boldness)—holy or its sitra achra counterfeit—enabling him to know whom and how to rebuke, thereby elevating malchut to Or HaPanim (the Divine Countenance), most fully revealed on the Three Festivals. The lesson closes by explaining the riddle's details as ciphers for these very concepts, ending with how one's voice reveals one's inner malchut, illustrated by Shaul recognizing David's regal voice.
Likutei Moharan 179
Here is a 150–250 word abridgment of Likutei Moharan 179: Rebbe Nachman opens by noting that all forms of machloket (conflict/dispute) — physical or spiritual — obstruct a person's prayer and avodat Hashem (service of God), since opposition seeks to nullify one's will. The remedy is taanit (fasting), understood as a form of tzedakah (charity), per the rabbinic teaching that "one who increases tzedakah increases shalom (peace)." Taanit subdues the heart, binding its will to that of the Kadosh Baruch Hu (Holy One, Blessed be He), thereby dissolving the "other wills" that generate machloket. He then explains, via Rosh Hashanah 18b, why fast days are destined to become days of sasson v'simchah (joy and gladness): fasting builds the "structure" of simchah by reviving days that were spiritually "dead" — days on which no mitzvot were done, and whose Divine shefa (flow of sustenance) was diminished or even drained through sin, like an infant who, lacking milk, drains its mother's very blood. Through sustained fasting, one draws on and thereby revives the accumulated spiritual "strength" of prior days, restoring their vitality. This is the meaning of "sammecheinu kimot initanu" (Psalms 90:15) — joy corresponds to the days of affliction/fasting. Finally, Rebbe Nachman links this to Yom Kippur, "the one day" containing and revivifying all days, whose inuy nefesh (afflicting the soul) means subduing the will itself.
Likutei Moharan 6
This lesson opens with Hashem's command to Moshe, "Call Yehoshua," and builds toward a teaching on kavod (honor), teshuvah (repentance), and the transmission from Moshe to Yehoshua. Rebbe Nachman begins: one who pursues kavod attains only the contested "honor of kings," subject to endless scrutiny, while one who flees honor and diminishes himself attains divine kavod, of which it is said "the honor of God is to conceal a matter." This higher kavod comes only through teshuvah, whose essence is silence when insulted—turning dam (blood, the fire of the yetzer hara, evil inclination) into dom (silence), fulfilling "be silent before Hashem." This is the "slaughtering of the yetzer hara," bringing zevichat todah, the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Since no one can claim a fully pure teshuvah, one must continually do teshuvah upon one's teshuvah, as deeper Divine daat (knowledge) always reveals the former level as still "physical." This double teshuvah—first zevichat hayetzer, then confession upon it—corresponds to kavod of Olam Hazeh and kavod of Olam Haba, mirrored in the two nekudos (points) of the letter Aleph and its middle vav (representing bushah, shame, and rakia, sky). This structure maps onto Moshe (upper point, keter/crown) and Yehoshua (lower point), sun and moon, and the three mitzvos before entering Eretz Yisrael. One must be "expert in going and returning" (baki beratzo, baki beshov)—never satisfied in ascent, never despairing in descent—paralleling the Names kesa and sag, whose union forms "derech," the path of teshuvah, and judging every person favorably, thereby becoming a keter for Hashem.
Sources & translations
| Beit Aharon | translated by AI (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5) |
| Likutei Moharan | Likutey Moharan Volumes 1-11, trans. by Moshe Mykoff. Breslov Research Inst., 1986-2012 |
| Ohev Yisrael | translated by AI (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5) |
| Or HaChaim | Or Hachayim, trans. Eliyahu Munk |
| Peri Tzadik | translated by AI (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5) |
| Ramban | Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976 |
| Rashi | Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934 |
| Sefat Emet | translated by AI (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5) |
| Sifra | Sifra by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein |
| Torah and Haftarah | The Koren Jerusalem Bible |
| Vayikra Rabbah | The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022 |
| Zera Kodesh | translated by AI (anthropic/claude-sonnet-5) |