Festival of Tabernacles Comes to Life at Woollahra

In October 2024, Woollahra Seventh-day Adventist Church set up a sukkah to commemorate the Festival of Tabernacles, or Sukkot. A sukkah is a temporary structure built during Sukkot to symbolise the desert huts where the Israelites lived after escaping from Egypt.

According to Pastor Daniel Przybylko, the hut and special service helped give the church family and community a window into deeper meanings. “It reminds all of us that we are just pilgrims and strangers passing through, looking forward to a better land, a better country—a heavenly home—and to Christ’s return!”

Pr Daniel explained that celebrating the festival also allowed the congregation to connect with their Adventism and their Jewish neighbors. “Ellen White says, ‘Well would it be for the people of God at the present time to have a Feast of Tabernacles,’” he said. “As Adventists, some celebrate the Lord’s Supper, Easter, and Christmas. Those were fulfilled promises. But Sukkot is the one annual festival that hasn’t yet been fulfilled. I think it makes a lot of sense for Adventists to celebrate Sukkot to look forward with eagerness to the Second Coming.”

The Woollahra Church intentionally minsters to its Jewish neighbours and friends. “We have programs and events scattered throughout the year that members can invite their Jewish friends to,” Pr Daniel explained. These include a prayer service on Purim, Passover seders followed by dinner at the church, a service on Yom HaShoah where church members invite relatives of Holocaust survivors and those who served in WWII, and more.

“We often do these on the closest Sabbath to the event so that our church can experience it and invite a friend,” he adds. “When possible, we ask a Jewish Adventist to preach for special occasions. We also invite local guest speakers from the community.”

Church members have embraced the cultural and religious tie-ins. “Many people at Woollahra just automatically say ‘Shabbat shalom’ as opposed to ‘Happy Sabbath,’ which we will hear in most Adventist circles on Sabbath,” he said.

This also serves a dual purpose. “In times like we live in today, where there is a sharp increase in antisemitism, we should support to our Jewish neighbours by reaching out to them to show our support,” he adds.

The sukkah hut was especially exciting to the kids in the congregation, and it helped them grasp a bigger metaphor. “The children loved it,” Pr Daniel said. “Children always like to play ‘cubby house,’ so this was like a large version of that! We got to explain to them the idea that we are on this earth with all its problems temporarily until Jesus returns. Our houses are only temporary.”

At the Sukkot service, two Jewish women spoke, sharing how they both grew up in Jewish environments but came to believe in Yeshua, Jesus, through their life journeys. “They also shared how Sukkot now took on a new and larger meaning for them as they look forward to the return of Yeshua and the kingdom to come,” Pr Daniel explained.

While Pr Daniel is moving to a different church next year, the Woollahra congregation plans to revisit the Sukkah festival again next October.