Ushpizin

Mark Podwal (b. 1945)
Digitial archival pigment print on paper
7 7/16 x 7 9/16″
USA, 2020
© Mark Podwal

According to rabbinic tradition, Jews build a sukkah (booth) on the festival of Sukkot to recall the Israelites’ fragile dwellings during their forty years of wandering after the Exodus from Egypt (Leviticus 23:33-43). Tents would have been more likely than booths in the wilderness and it may be that the Israelites initially celebrated the festival in tents and replaced them with the sukkah, symbolic of the temporary shelters used by farmers during the last days of the fall harvest. On Sukkot, on entering the Sukkah one begins by inviting the ushpizin (Aramaic for “guests”)—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, and David. This custom is attributed to Isaac Luria, the sixteenth-century kabbalist (mystic) of Safed. According to tradition, these seven guests will accompany the Messiah at the time of the final Redemption. On each of the seven days of Sukkot one of the seven ushpizin comes to visit. A more recent custom also invites the seven female ushpizot: Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Leah, Miriam, Abigail, and Esther.