Every October, something unusual happens on the streets of Jerusalem. Thousands of Christians from over a hundred nations march through the capital waving their national flags in celebration of a Jewish festival. They come from Nigeria, Brazil, South Korea, Norway — from every corner of the world. And they come, year after year, for Sukkot. Why?
The Torah portion of Emor was given while the Israelites were camped at Mount Sinai — and it is here that God first commands Sukkot, hiding within it a vision that these Christians are living out thousands of years later.
The Torah commands that during the Temple period, seventy bulls were to be sacrificed over the seven days of Sukkot. According to the sages, these sacrifices corresponded to the seventy nations of the world (Sukkah 55b). Of all the festivals, Sukkot is the one that most explicitly faces outward. Passover looks inward — it commemorates Israel’s liberation from Egypt. Shavuot looks inward — it marks the giving of Torah at Sinai. While Sukkot celebrates God’s protection of the Israelites in the desert, it also looks toward the nations, including them in its sacrificial service, praying for them and anticipating the day when they too would recognize the God of Israel.
When King Solomon finally completed the Temple — a project his father David had dreamed of but was forbidden to build — he faced a choice about when to dedicate it. The building was finished in the eighth month of the eleventh year of his reign. But Solomon waited eleven months before holding the dedication ceremony. He chose Sukkot.
In his book, Universal Zionism, Rabbi Tuly Weisz points out that Solomon’s choice of Sukkot for the Temple’s dedication was deliberate. Sukkot was the most universal of the three pilgrimage festivals, the one that pointed most clearly beyond Israel to the nations. By selecting it for the Temple’s dedication, Solomon was making a statement about what kind of institution the Temple would be. Egyptian temples served Egyptians. Babylonian temples served Babylonians. Solomon’s Temple, from its very foundation, would be something different.
His dedication prayer makes this unmistakably clear. Solomon prayed not only for the Jewish people who would come to worship, but specifically for foreigners: “If the foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, comes from a distant land for the sake of Your name… when he comes to pray toward this house, hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and grant all that the foreigner asks of You; thus the peoples of the earth will know Your name and revere You” (1 Kings 8:41-43).
This was unprecedented in the ancient world. No king in history had ever built a national temple and then prayed explicitly for foreigners to come and have their prayers answered there. But Solomon understood Israel’s mission: not to hoard its relationship with God, but to share it. To be, in the language of Exodus, “a kingdom of priests” — and priests, by definition, serve not only themselves. This is the essence of Universal Zionism: Israel was chosen not to stand apart from the nations, but to serve as their spiritual bridge to God.
Let’s return now to Sukkot and the seventy bulls. The nations for whom those offerings were made probably had no idea the sacrifices were being brought on their behalf. The service happened in Jerusalem, the nations went about their lives, and the spiritual benefit flowed outward invisibly.
But Zechariah saw the day when that invisibility would end. The nations would eventually learn what Sukkot was about, and when they did, they would come. Not to convert. Not to take anything for themselves. Simply to be present — to stand in Jerusalem and acknowledge the God who had been including them in His calendar all along, even when they didn’t know it.
For most of Jewish history, Zechariah’s vision seemed like distant poetry. Today, thousands come annually from all over the world, marching through the streets of Jerusalem in their national costumes, each nation announced by name as they parade through the capital. They cite Zechariah 14:16 as their mandate. They come because something ancient is pulling them — a call written into the Torah, amplified by the prophets, and now audible enough that thousands of people board planes every October to answer it.
Three thousand years ago, Israel brought offerings in Jerusalem on behalf of nations that didn’t know it was happening. Today, those nations are showing up in person. Universal Zionism didn’t begin in the twenty-first century. It began at Sinai.
