The Luxury of Austerity

Sukkos

Posted on September 28, 2023 (5784) By Rabbi Yaakov Menken | Series: Lifeline | Level: Beginner

On the Mitzvah of dwelling in a Sukkah, the Torah says, “In order that your generations will know that I placed the Children of Israel in Sukkos when I brought them out of the Land of Egypt; I am Hashem Your G-d” [Lev. 23:43].

 

What is the “knowledge” that we gain by living in a Sukkah? The Sages say: “Go out from your fixed dwelling, and sit in a temporary dwelling” [Sukkah 2a]. My wife’s grandfather, Rav Tzvi Elimelech Hertzberg zt”l, explains that in so doing a person can merit to realize that all that we acquire in this world, what we imagine to be fixed and permanent, is in the end only temporary.

 

With this, a person can subdue his own wants and desires for things of this world, since they are, in the end, of little consequence.

 

Thus, he says, by living in a Sukkah a person can merit to achieve true humility, where it might seem that he has “fallen,” but Hashem is the support and helper of the fallen. In fact, hinting to this idea, the Rebbe of Koritz says that the Hebrew letters of “Sukkah” are themselves an acronym for “support and helper of all fallen.”

 

The other major holidays, Pesach and Shavuos, recall particular events (the Exodus from Egypt and the Giving of the Torah, respectively) and come at the same time as those events. Sukkos alone is not tied to a particular event that happened on a particular day. So perhaps Rav Hertzberg teaches us why Sukkos is found on the calendar just a few days after Yom Kippur, a day when we reflect upon our failings, how low and lacking we are, and commit to doing better. Sukkos is a happy festival, but living in a Sukkah means being more exposed to the elements, and taking a step down from the comfort of our own dining room and warm house.

 

Especially as this is the time, in an agrarian society, where people would enjoy the harvest of their crops, Sukkos redirects us to spiritual uplift and enjoyment, rather than physical. This is a lesson we can carry with us throughout the year—so that while we enjoy the Sukkos holiday, we take away lessons that will bring us to the next Yom Kippur with fewer regrets over times we lost sight of what is truly important in life.

 

Count Your Blessings

Sukkos

Posted on October 21, 2003 (5764) By Rabbi Pinchas Avruch | Series: Kol HaKollel | Level: Beginner

SHMINI ATZERES/SIMCHAS TORAH and Parshas Vezos Haberacha – 22 Tishrei 5764

The First Day of the Rest of the Year

by Rabbi Moshe Peretz Gilden

Simchas Torah’s celebration of the completion of the Torah involves reading the final portion from the Torah, VeZos HaBeracha, and reading the account of the seven days of creation at the start of Beraishis (Genesis). The Torah’s conclusion is primarily the blessings that Moshe gave the Nation of Israel immediately before his death. But while the Parsha starts, “And this is the blessing that Moshe, the man of G-d, bestowed upon the children of Israel before his death.”

 

(Devarim/Deuteronomy 33:1), before delivering the actual blessings, he first reviewed the giving of the Torah by G-d on Mount Sinai. Why is this interjection necessary?

 

Nachalas Dovid (Rabbi Dovid of Tevil, primary disciple of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, disciple of the famed Rabbi Eliyahu, Gaon of Vilna) explains that blessings cannot simply enter our lives.

 

Rather, blessings are requests for additional good to be added to the good one already has.

 

The prior blessing acts as a vessel to receive and carry the additional blessing. Moshe wanted to bless the Children of Israel, but he first needed to awaken their cognizance of their existing blessings. Thus, Moshe started with our receiving the Torah, utilizing the Jewish nation’s greatest blessing as the receiving agent for his blessings.

 

We all know we are supposed to “Count your blessings,” but we do not usually consider that a person who only sees the negative parts of his life he has no vessel to carry any blessings that he may deserve. However, one who is constantly attuned to all the good that he does have can receive even more, for now he has a “vessel” in which to carry them.

 

The holiday of Simchas Torah is a day to rejoice in the completion of the Torah. But it is also the completion of the cycle of holidays with which the Jewish year starts. We now appreciate the gifts G-d has given us: a renewed relationship with Him from Rosh Hashanah, a new lease on life and all of life’s accoutrements on Yom Kippur, and a new sense of trust in our Heavenly Father from Succos. Today we celebrate our manifold blessings: we savor the blessings of these past three weeks, and with them we ready ourselves to receive the bounty G-d has in store for us for the coming year.