“….You shall make yourself the festival of Sukkot for seven days…..” – Devarim 16:13

״…..חג סוכות תעשה לך שבעת ימים….״ – דברים טז,יג

Several unique mitzvos are observed during the holiday of Sukkos. Yet, the holiday is called Sukkos, named specifically for the obligation to dwell in a Sukkah during these seven days, and not for any other of this holiday’s mitzvos, such as waving the Lulav and Esrog.

Why?

More than any other mitzvos of this holiday, dwelling in the Sukkah fully encompasses the individual – and not only spatially. Most mitzvos involve specific actions performed with specific limbs or faculties. In the mitzvah of the Four Species, for example, holding and waving the Four Species engages the hands and their muscles of movement. The mitzvah of dwelling in the Sukkah, on the other hand, involves your entire body and, in fact, all of your daily life; dwelling in the Sukkah means going about all your everyday affairs in the Sukkah, as you would in your regular home. Activities done with any of your limbs fulfill the mitzvah of Sukkah, if they are but performed within the walls of a kosher Sukkah.

Additionally, since the mitzvah is to make the Sukkah your home for the duration of these seven days, one’s association with his Sukkah extends even to when he is outside of it. Our Sages say that a man without a home is not a man (see Tosfos to Yevamos 63a). This means that even when you aren’t actually inside your home, your place of dwelling gives you your full sense of being. If follows that during the holiday of Sukkos, your entire identity is associated and defined by the Sukkah you call home, even when going about your life beyond the Sukkah walls.

The name of the holiday is therefore drawn specifically from this mitzvah and not the others, as the mitzvah of Sukkah encompasses and defines all aspects of life for these seven days.

—Likutei Sichos vol. 2 pp. 417-418

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