Hoshanot are the prayers of supplication recited during the festival of Sukkot, taking their name from the Hebrew cry hoshana, "save, we pray", that runs through them as a refrain. Each day of the festival, worshippers holding the four species, the palm branch, myrtle, willow and citron that the Torah commands be taken up in rejoicing before God, circle the synagogue's reading platform in procession while reciting these prayers, which plead for salvation, for rain, for a good harvest and for redemption. The circuits recall the processions around the altar that were made in the Temple during the festival.
The observance reaches its climax on the seventh day, Hoshana Rabbah, the "Great Hoshana," when seven circuits are made instead of one and the full body of Hoshanot prayers is recited. On this day a distinctive ancient custom is kept: after the prayers, worshippers take a bundle of willow branches and beat them against the ground until the leaves fall, a rite whose precise meaning is much discussed but which is associated with the shedding of sin and with prayer for the rains on which the coming year's life depends. Hoshana Rabbah is regarded in later tradition as a final sealing of the judgment begun on the High Holy Days, giving the joyful festival of Sukkot a solemn close.