Rebbetzin Tziporah on Succos

an oldie but goodie (2022)

Dear friends,

How much time will you get to sit in the succah this year? For many of you, the answer is “not too much.” If you are living in a place where building your own succah is just not going to happen, then you may be in what I’ll call category 1.

If you could build one, but it’s so small that you leave it to the men in your life, I will call you a person who is in category 2.

If you have a spacious succah and have learned enough about it for it to be the place you want to be, but you have to work on Chol HaMoed or lose your job, you fall into category 3. Category 4: for safety reasons, climate reasons, or membership of a community in which sleeping in the succah isn’t done, the only time left is when it is neither day nor night. Does that mean that Succos is a shadow of a holiday?

HAVE NO FEAR SUCCOS IS STILL HERE!

Whether or not you are able to be in the succah physically as much as you would like, these days are days in which you are surrounded by what the Kabbalists call the “makifin” the surrounding light. In general, we live within the frame of what they would call Ohr Pnimi, inner light. What that means is that Hashem is in constant response to your striving, your yearning, and your doing. This is what is meant when it says in Tehillim, “Hashem is the shadow of your right hand”. The same way a shadow follows the movement of the hand, Hashem echoes your movement towards Him. Ohr Makif tells you that there are times that He is with you wherever you are, whatever you do; He is like your succah, the visible one or the invisible one. The word succah is 91 in gematria. This number equals the gematria of Hashem’s four-letter sacred Name, YKVK, and the Name that we pronounce when praying, ADNY. This tells you that Hashem who is transcendent and unknowable (YKVK, which we don’t say – it expresses a dimension of reality that is far beyond us) is also there. His light is in every aspect of reality, and especially on Succos, He lets you see that He is there in what tragically some people call the “real world” even if you don’t let Him in.

ALL OF YOU? WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE ISSUES WITH THE CREATOR

We take the esrog, which represents the heart, the lulav which represents the spine, the hadasim which represent the eyes, and the aravos which represent the lips, and draw them all close. The heart, the Gra tells us, is the captain of the ship. All of the otherness that this world can lead you to can easily overwhelm the spark of wisdom hidden in your heart. It’s still there. The spine carries the messages of the brain to the rest of the body and generates unity between what you think and feel, and what you actually do. You then can interpret what your eyes tell you. In the end, who you really are will be expressed by your words. Real simcha comes when the different parts of you are all working together. When you let yourself feel surrounded by Hashem, it’s a lot easier.

A HARD MITZVAH?

Rambam writes that “There is a mitzvah to be happy on all of the holidays, but is especially important on Succos as it says, ‘Rejoice before Hashem your G-d seven days.'" If you find it hard, daven for simcha! It isn’t mission impossible. A man came to Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach. He was deep in depression about the hard realities he faced. Rav Shlomo Zalman said that he knows a man who also suffers, but is still always happy. “The man had surgery that left him deaf in one ear. He is a widower with all that entails, and three of his grown children are married but never had children of their own. He is genuinely happy and always has a smile on his face.”

The man answered, “I don’t believe what you’re saying. Do you actually know him?” Reb Shlomo Zalman replied, “I know him well. In fact, I’m talking about myself.”

His esrog, lulav, hadasim, and aravos were together, focused, and full of emunah.

 

Have a great Succos!!

Love,

Tziporah