storical feast by making it the memorial day of
the giving of the Ten Words on Mount Sinai. It was thus given a universal
significance, as the Midrash has it, "turning the Feast of the First
Fruits into a festival commemorating the ripening of the first fruits of
the spiritual harvest for the people of the covenant."(1486) Henceforth
the Ten Words were to be solemnly read to the congregation on that day,
and the pledge of loyalty made by the fathers thereby renewed each year by
Israel's faithful sons. The leaders of Reform Judaism surrounded the day
with new charm by the introduction of the confirmation ceremony,(1487)
thus rendering it a feast of consecration of the Jewish youth to the
ancient covenant, of yearly renewal of loyalty by the rising generation to
the ancestral faith.

11. The main festival in Biblical times was the Feast of _Sukkoth_, or
Tabernacles, the great harvest festival of autumn, when the people flocked
to the central sanctuary in solemn procession, carrying palms and other
plants. Hence this was called the _Hag_ or Pilgrimage Feast.(1488) In the
post-exilic Priestly Code this festival also was made historical, and the
name Feast of Sukkoth (which denoted originally Feast of Pilgrimage Tents)
was connected with the exodus from Egypt, when the town of _Sukkoth_
(possibly named from the tents of their encampment) was made the rallying
point of the fugitive Hebrews at their departure from Egypt. The
commentators no longer understood this connection, and traced the name to
the tents erected by the people in their wanderings through the
wilderness.(1489) It seems that from very ancient times popular rites were
performed at this feast, which took a specially solemn form in the holding
of a procession from the pool of Shiloah at the foot of the Temple mount
to the altar in the Temple, to offer there a libation of water, which was
a sort of symbolic prayer for rain for the opening year. Obviously, it is
this feast which is referred to in the last chapter of Zechariah, while
this outburst of popular joy found a deep response among the pious leaders
of the people and is echoed in the liturgy of the medieval
Synagogue.(1490) The Halakic rules concerning the tabernacle and the four
plans for it tended to obscure the real significance of the
festival;(1491) yet in the synagogue and the home it retained its original
character as a "season of gladness." The joyous gratitude to God for His
protection of Israel duri