Monday, October 13, 2008
Sukkos: Rosh Hashana for Aveiros
There was a guy who came to the Norfolk area about the same time that the kollel did. We came to teach Torah and he came to get away from it. I didn’t see him much, but we met a few years later on Yom Kippur. He told me that he was leaving - he had decided to leave his job and move to Israel so that he could return to Yeshiva. His reasoning was simple - “I grew up in a frum environment and I simply can’t spend the rest of my life on the beach”. He recognized that his past had turned him into a person that could not live with his present.
Sukkos is the Rosh Hashana for Aveiros, the New Year for Sins. We are given a fresh start after Yom Kippur and between Yom Kippur and Sukkos we are too busy preparing for the holiday to do anything wrong. (Medrash Rabba).
There is a core Chassidic idea that the preparation for the mitzvah is more important than the mitzvah itself. After all, building a sukka and cooking meals is only preparation for the holidays, yet it effectively keeps us away from sin. Sukkos itself, when we are sitting in our sukka’s and eating those meals is when we find ourselves beginning to sin.
The so called Misnagdim (opponents of Chassidus) were against this idea. The Nefesh Hachaim considered it all but blasphemous to suggest that choosing a lulav and preparing for prayer could be more important than shaking a lulav and prayer itself. While preparing for a Mitzvah we are engrossed in an incomplete mitzvah.It is only when we see a mitzvah through to its’ completion that we can realize its’ true benefits.
It is kind of like school: A person can spend twenty years of his life in school. During that time period he is immersed in an educational environment. His life is based on an academic schedule and he lives and breathes his studies. When he finally graduates he leaves that intense environment - but he is now a graduate. He can sleep all day and never open another textbook, but if someone needs a doctor or a lawyer or a toothpaste tester he is qualified and licensed to help.
The same is true of Mitzvos. While preparing for a mitzvah, we think of nothing but that mitzvah. When we complete the mitzvah, we often forget about it - but we are different people because of it. A completed mitzvah elevates us in a very real and permanent way. It envelopes us with holiness and brings us closer to Hashem. Upon completion, a Mitzvah leaves our physical lives but becomes a part of our neshamos.
In the days leading up to Sukkos we are physically busy with mitzvos but we have not yet upgraded our souls. When sukkos finally comes, our mitzvos transform us into elevated and better human beings.
As the sukka forces us to reinvent our physical environment, the calm of Yom Tov forces us to test the waters and see what we have become spiritually. Sukkos is our first chance to act outside of our ”busy-work”. It is the Rosh Hashana for sin.
May we merit to see our mitzvos change who we are and penetrate to the depths of our souls.
Sources: Medrash Rabbah, Emor 30:7; Yayna Shel Torah, p. 6; Ruach Chaim, preface.
