Ushpizin: The Seven Guests of Sukkos

On each of the seven nights of Sukkos, as the family gathers under the schach and the candles flicker against the canvas walls, we welcome guests who arrive without footsteps. The Ushpizin, the seven exalted souls who visit the sukkah, are Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, Yosef, and Dovid, the shepherds of our nation, and the Zohar teaches that they descend to dwell with every Jew who sits in a kosher sukkah. We invite them aloud, we set a place that honors them, and we feel, in the small fragile hut that is the whole of our home for a week, that we are keeping company with the foundations of Klal Yisroel.

The Ushpizin carry a teaching that sits at the very center of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, founded in 1799: the Zohar warns that these holy guests will not remain in a sukkah where the poor are not welcomed and fed. To invite the great souls of our past is to open the door to the living poor of the present, and tzedakah becomes the price of their company. Before we welcome them ourselves, let us understand who the Ushpizin are, where the custom comes from, and what each of these seven souls brings to our table.

Understanding Ushpizin

Ushpizin is the Aramaic word for “guests,” and it names the seven illustrious souls who, according to the Zohar, visit the sukkah on each day of Sukkos. The seven are Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, Yosef, and Dovid, and the custom is that all seven are present each day while one of them “leads” on his particular day. The tradition assigns each guest to one of the seven lower sefiros, the Divine attributes through which Hashem relates to the world: Avraham embodies chesed (loving-kindness), Yitzchak gevurah (strength), Yaakov tiferes (harmony), Moshe netzach (endurance), Aharon hod (splendor), Yosef yesod (foundation), and Dovid malchus (kingship).

When and how are the Ushpizin welcomed? On entering the sukkah each night, many recite a formal invitation, declaring the arrival of the exalted guests and inviting that day’s leader together with the other six. The custom is observed by families across the Jewish world, with both Sephardic and Chassidic communities preserving rich nuschaos of the invitation, and it belongs to the avodah of Sukkos, the holiday of simchah and of dwelling in Hashem’s shade. Some Chassidic customs add a parallel set of seven tzaddikim of the later generations, but the core seven of the Zohar are universal.

Where does this custom sit in the hierarchy of practice? Welcoming the Ushpizin is a minhag rooted in the Zohar, a hallowed Kabbalistic tradition rather than a halachic obligation, yet it is so widely kept and so deeply woven into the experience of Sukkos that for many it is inseparable from the holiday. Its enduring power lies in what it asks of us: to make our temporary dwelling worthy of the greatest souls of our history, and to do so by filling it with the poor.

The History and Origins of Ushpizin

The source of the Ushpizin is the Zohar, in Parshas Emor, which teaches that when a Jew sits in the sukkah, the Shechinah spreads its wings over him from above and Avraham Avinu, together with the other righteous guests, comes to dwell with him. The Zohar describes the seven as descending in turn, each leading on his day, and emphasizes that a person should rejoice with these guests of faith. From this teaching grew the custom of inviting them aloud, a practice given detailed form by the Arizal and the Kabbalists of Tzfas, whose invitation formulas appear in many siddurim to this day, with the precise nusach varying by community.

The pairing of each guest with a sefirah reflects the inner structure the Kabbalah perceives in the order of these seven souls. Avraham, paradigm of chesed, opens the week, for kindness is the gateway to all service; Yitzchak, who allowed himself to be bound, embodies the gevurah of self-restraint; Yaakov unites the two in the tiferes of truth. Moshe and Aharon, the twin leaders of the wilderness, carry netzach and hod, endurance and splendor; Yosef, who guarded his integrity in exile, is yesod, the foundation; and Dovid, the anointed king and author of Tehillim, is malchus, the kingship through which all the attributes reach the world. This arrangement was transmitted, not invented, by the masters of the hidden Torah, who read in the order of the Avos and the leaders the very pattern by which Hashem governs creation.

A defining strand of the tradition, stressed sharply by the Zohar itself, is the inseparability of the heavenly guests from the earthly poor. The Zohar warns that one who sits in the sukkah enjoying the Ushpizin while giving the poor nothing of their portion will find that the holy guests withdraw, for they will not share a table where the needy are forgotten, an idea that aligns closely with the Rambam’s halachic demand to include the poor in the joy of Yom Tov. This is no later moralizing addition; it is the original teaching, and it has shaped the way generations of Jews have understood what it means to truly host the Ushpizin.

The Prayers, Readings, and Customs of Ushpizin

What Ushpizin Means: A Deeper Look

The custom of the Ushpizin is not merely a pious imagining; it is a structured teaching about hospitality, faith, and the fragile dwelling that is human life. Let us draw out four of its ideas.

The sukkah as the home of faith. The Zohar calls the sukkah the tzila dimheimnusa, the “shade of faith,” and the Ushpizin are precisely the seven souls who lived by that faith in the hardest circumstances. The Maharal teaches that we leave our solid houses for a hut roofed only by cut branches in order to relocate our security from walls to Hashem. The Ushpizin embody that relocation: every one of them was, at some point, a wanderer who found his home in the Divine promise rather than in any building. For the reader who feels the ground shifting beneath his own life, the sukkah and its guests teach that the truest shelter was never the walls to begin with.

Avraham and the open tent. The week opens with Avraham Avinu, whose tent the Midrash describes as open on all four sides so that no traveler would have to search for the door. The Gemara (Bava Metzia 86b) relates how, on the third day after his bris and in the heat of the day, he still longed for guests and went out to seek them. The deeper meaning is that chesed is the foundation of everything, the first guest because it is the first service; and the life-connection is direct, that we cannot host Avraham’s soul in a sukkah whose door is closed to the poor.

Yosef and integrity in exile. Yosef HaTzaddik, the guest of yesod, held his integrity intact through betrayal, slavery, and temptation in a foreign land. The Sfas Emes teaches that yesod is the attribute of faithfulness under pressure, the channel that keeps a person whole when everything around him pulls him apart. For the reader navigating a world that does not share his values, Yosef’s night in the sukkah is the reminder that one can remain a Jew of integrity in any exile, and that such faithfulness becomes the foundation on which everything else stands.

Dovid and the Ushpizin. The week closes with Dovid HaMelech, the seventh of the Ushpizin. Chazal’s mystical tradition places Dovid among the guests of the sukkah, and the Zohar ties their honor to caring for the poor as well. Dovid knew fear, pursuit, and distress: Scripture describes Shaul seeking him in the wilderness, and Tehillim preserves his own cries, “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard,” and “But I am poor and needy; O God, make haste unto me.” In that sense, Dovid is a fitting figure with whom to close: his kingship is not triumph without struggle, but a life turned toward Hashem in dependence, prayer, and praise.

The Laws and Customs of Welcoming the Ushpizin

While welcoming the Ushpizin is a minhag rather than a halachic obligation, the practice carries clear customs and one weighty principle that the poskim treat with the seriousness of law. The widely kept custom is to recite the invitation each day of Sukkos upon entering the sukkah for the meal, naming the seven guests and that day’s leader; the precise nusach varies between the Sephardic, Ashkenazic, and Chassidic rites, and each community follows its own. Setting a place or a chair for the Ushpizin is a beloved minhag, as is speaking words of Torah about the day’s guest at the meal.

Care for the poor is not only an ethical theme but a halachic obligation. The Rambam rules that when a person eats and drinks on Yom Tov, he is obligated to feed “converts, orphans, widows, and others who are destitute and poor,” and that one who “locks the gates of his courtyard” and feasts only with his family is not celebrating a mitzvah but “the rejoicing of his gut” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yom Tov 6:18). The Zohar connects this same demand to the Ushpizin: one must “gladden the poor,” because “the portion of the guests” belongs to them; and if a person invites those guests but does not give the poor their share, “they all remain distant from him” (Zohar III 103b, 104a). In that sense, the Ushpizin custom does not replace the halacha of simchas Yom Tov; it reinforces it by tying the holiness of the sukkah to generosity toward the poor.

The Spiritual Power of Tefillah and Tzedakah

The custom of Ushpizin reflects a central Jewish principle: the desire to welcome the Divine presence into our lives must be accompanied by a willingness to open our doors to other people. The very invitation we recite is undone if the poor are absent from our table, which is the Zohar’s way of teaching that our words rise only on the wings of our deeds. The Gemara in Bava Basra (10a) teaches that tzedakah brings the redemption near, and the Rambam (Hilchos Matnos Aniyim 10:7) ranks the levels of giving with the highest being the gift that lets a person stand on his own. On Sukkos, when we ask the seven shepherds of our nation to dwell with us, the tzedakah we give is not an afterthought to the prayer; it is the condition that makes the prayer real.

This is the avodah that Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities has carried since 1799, upholding the tzaddik’s legacy to intercede in Heaven for those who give to the poor of Eretz Yisroel in his memory. Not every family can seat a poor guest at its own sukkah table, but every family can ensure that the poor of the Holy Land have a table of their own, and giving for them is the modern fulfillment of the Zohar’s ancient demand. The tefillah of welcoming the Ushpizin is not an effort to summon spiritual powers for our benefit; it is an invitation to live like Avraham, whose tent had no closed side. The giving is an act of chesed and emunah, the surest way to make our fragile sukkah a place the souls of our greatest leaders would not refuse to enter.

Give Tzedakah in the Merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness The Ushpizin will not dwell in a sukkah where the poor are forgotten. As you welcome the seven exalted guests this Sukkos, ensure the needy families of Eretz Yisroel have a place at the table — a gift in the merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness that opens your sukkah on all four sides. [Donate Now] → https://rmbhcharities.com/reb-meirs-guarantee/

About Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities

Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, founded in 1799, is one of the oldest and most trusted tzedakah organizations serving the poor of Eretz Yisroel, upholding Rabbi Meir Baal Haness’s legacy that those who give to the needy in his memory find heavenly intercession in their time of need.

Today it distributes funds to Torah scholars, widows, orphans, and needy families throughout Eretz Yisroel — an unbroken chain of compassion and a zechus for the giver and their family.

Frequently Asked Questions About Ushpizin

Closing

When the last night of Sukkos ends, the memory of the Ushpizin still calls us to live by what they represent. From Avraham we learn openhearted hospitality, from Yosef moral steadfastness, and from Dovid humility before Hashem. The Zohar ties the honor of the Ushpizin to care for the poor, reminding us that a sukkah worthy of holy guests must also be a place of generosity. May the chesed we extend to those in need make our homes fitting for the Shechinah, and may we all merit to dwell, this year and always, beneath the shelter of His peace.