October 12, 2022|י"ז תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ג Drasha Sukkot: The Happiness of Sukkot: From Attitude to Movement By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

On Sukkot I like to talk about happiness for good reason.  Chazal refer to this holiday as zman simchatenu, the time of our happiness. The Rambam refers to this holiday as having a “simcha yetera,” an extra level of happiness.  This holiday being defined as one of happiness reminds me of a story of  a woman who walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch. "I couldn't help noticing how happy you look," she said.  "What's your secret for a long happy life?"  "I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day," he said. "I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise."  "That's amazing," the woman said. "How old are you?'  "Twenty-six." Why is Sukkot truly the holiday of simcha, the holiday of happiness?

 

There are many reasons that come to mind.  We are happy that God protected us in the desert.  In an agrarian society, we were happy after we gathered all the produce that we planted last winter and harvested in the spring and the summer.  We are happy that God just forgave us on Yom Kippur and now we are renewing our relationship with Him. 

 

This morning, though, I want to share with you a fascinating different perspective on the unique simcha of Sukkot that Rav Hutner suggests in his sefer, Pachad Yitzchak.  Let us begin with the beginning, that is, the beginning of time, mankind before original sin.  Here is man who is created in a perfect world and his job is “l’ovdah u’l’shomrah,” to till the soil of the garden of Eden and guard it.  Pretty simple job.  Till and stand guard.  And then he eats from the etz ha’da’at, the Tree of Knowledge, and it all goes downhill from there.  What changed from pre-sin to post-sin?  First of all, man was kicked out of the garden, he was given a different job and he was told “bzei’at apecha tochal lechem,” or “by the sweat of your brow you will eat bread.”  But something else happened to him.  

 

The Ramban writes that before sin, evil was external, outside of man, but after he sinned, evil became internal and there was confusion inside man as to what is good and evil.  But what does that mean?  What does it mean if evil is internal or external, if there is internal confusion or merely evil on the outside?  It’s the difference between the goal of Yom Kippur and the goal of Sukkot.  

 

What are we trying to accomplish on Yom Kippur and what are we trying to accomplish on Sukkot?  On Yom Kippur our goal is to cleanse and purify ourselves to transform ourselves, if only for a moment, to life before original sin.  The goal on Yom Kippur is to remove the internal sin, the internal confusion that we have as to what are the correct values and what is the correct path that we should take.  We submit to the five inuyim, the five afflictions.  We engage in prishut, or separation from physicality to purify ourselves and we emerge from Yom Kippur clean and pure.  We have achieved one type of teshuva.

 

But Yom Kippur is not the ideal.  There is still external evil.  There is still a garden that needs to be tilled.  There still is a world that needs perfecting.  We have removed internal impurities but there still is work to be done.  It’s time not for “sur mei’ra” but for “asei tov.”  It’s time to enjoy the world, true enjoyment, without any confusion.  It’s time for “usmachtem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem shivat hayamim,” of being happy before God.  What does that stage look like?  

 

A few weeks ago, Rav Elie Mischel wrote a fascinating article in the Mizrachi magazine entitled, “It’s Time to Move On:  From Modern Orthodoxy to Religious Zionism.”  In this article, he argued that modern orthodoxy is a sophisticated attitude towards modern life, but religious Zionism is a movement.  What is the difference between an attitude and a movement?  An attitude is an intellectual approach about how we deal with the complexity of life.  I like to say that the modern orthodox attitude is to embrace the world in all of its complexity through the prism of Torah and Torah values.  But a movement is something entirely different.  Rabbi Mischel writes:  “A movement moves people towards a common objective; it is a source of passion and energy and inspires them to act and sacrifice on its behalf.  Movements, religious or otherwise, bring masses of people together to achieve a deeply meaningful goal.”  A modern orthodox ideology does not evoke passion and drive, but a religious Zionist movement does.  

 

I think there is what to praise and critique with the modern orthodox ideology and there is what to praise and critique with the religious Zionist movement, but this article highlights the difference between the attitude and the movement, perhaps the intellect versus the heart, perhaps the individual versus the community.  Maybe this is also Yom Kippur versus Sukkot.  Yom Kippur is about clarifying our ideology, our attitude and our Torah approach to life.  On Yom Kippur hopefully we reflected on times when we have acted as if our embrace of the outside world became the “ikar,” our main pursuit, whereas our embrace of Torah became the “tafel,” our secondary pursuit.  On Yom Kippur, hopefully we reflected on times when we did things that we thought were spiritually healthy but, in reality, they were not.  Hopefully, we used Yom Kippur to develop the correct attitude to embrace the world through the prism of Torah.   

 

But now we’ve moved on to a different type of spiritual experience, one of “u’smachtem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem shivat yamim,” of being happy before God for seven days.  Now we know that there already is a mitzvah of happiness on this holiday, the mitzvah of “v’samachta b’chagecha,” of being happy during your holidays.  Do you know what the difference between the two types of simcha on Sukkot, between “v’samachta b’chagecha” and “u’smachtem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem shivat yamim?”  Let’s say you go to a dinner dance, chas v’shalom.  The difference between “v’samachta b’chagecha” and “u’smachtem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem shivat yamim” is the difference between the dinner and the dance.  The dinner generates happiness, and the dance is an expression of happiness.  During every holiday we are required to do certain things that naturally make us happy in order to generate happiness.  That’s “v’samachat b’chagecha” – eating meat, drinking wine, wearing new clothing and jewelry.  However, on Sukkot, the Rambam tells us that “yesh bo simcha yeteira,” there is a natural feeling of happiness because we’ve moved from being an ideology to a movement.  We are all together celebrating as a community.  We feel inspired.  We feel passionate.  We as a community feel so close to God that we just dance the night away during the Simchat Beit Hashoeva that take place during this holiday.  The dance does not generate happiness; rather, the dance is an expression of happiness.  You never dance to get to the last step.

 

This week is the week for us to dream not just about ourselves, but about the broader community.  Each one of us has the ability to take the clarity of thought that we internalized on Yom Kippur and then dream of how to create an inspired, passionate movement based on those values in our communities.  Many of our communities do a great job in creating a sense of belonging which is so important as a first step towards creating a strong community.  Sukkot, though, challenges us to think bigger.  Because do you know what truly transforms communities?  It’s creating more and more inspired meaningful moments in our communities.  Maybe during Sukkot, when each one of us has greater clarity of thought, maybe we ask ourselves what are we doing when feel inspired?  What are we doing when we truly feel “u’smachtem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem shivat yamim?”  Is it something in the area of Talmud Torah, tefilla or chesed?  This, I think, may be one of the singular most important messages for us during the holiday of Sukkot.  Each one of us can play a part in this.  Let us all maximize this transition from Yom Kippur to Sukkot, from post-sin to pre-sin, from attitude to movement, and let us dream about how to create more inspired meaningful moments in our communities and with the help of God, let us make this dream a reality.