Today’s class has been sponsored for a Refuah Shelemah for Sholomo Ben Leila by his family.
Today, we have another Bitachon- related Succah thought.
As we know, Succot is known as Zman Simchatenu- The time of happiness.
The Gaon of Vilna was once asked which of the 613 mitzvot was most difficult to fulfill. His answer was the Mitzvah of Simcha on Succot. It is a 24 hour/8 day Mitzvah (outside of Eretz Yisrael it’s 24/9). That means nothing can upset us or bring us down. We have to be b’simcha-happy. How do we get there?
Once again, we go back to our Succah-Bitachon approach. When we sit in the Succah, we get the lesson of the Succah which is that it’s not your house or your car or your business or your family that has been taking care of you all these years.
But when a person looks at life and thinks that it’s his business, his family, the economy, the country, the government or the police force has been holding him up all these years, then, when those things get shaky, he starts shaking.
On the other hand, there are those who realize that it has nothing to do with those factors. They realize that they’re in their huts, and they’ve always been in their huts, which is symbolic of Hashem taking care of us, in the clouds of glory (and those clouds are still here with us today, we just can’t see them with our physical eyes). They do not worry. They just follow the cloud. Step by step in life, that is where they go. When this is clear to a person, then he’s always happy because he knows Who’s leading him.
This is the very important Mitzvah of Simcha.
The Pele Yoetz, Rav Eliezer Papo, one of my favorites, comments about this.
(A little aside about Hinuch: when I was about 7-8 years old, my father used to learn Pele Yoetz with me. When I asked him why, he said it was because his father used to learn it with him. So, we have that tradition in our family. When you learn something as a child, it stays with you, so now I have a special love for the Pele Yoetz because of this.)
There is a well known rule from the Mishnah in Pirke Avot
לפום צערא אגרא
According to the pain, is the reward.
This means that if a Mitzvah is difficult, the reward is greater.
If it is hard to shake a lulav and etrog because they were hard to come by one year, you get more reward for it.
Or if it’s difficult for you to put up a mezuzah, you get more reward. Something easier yield less reward. That is the rule.
The chiddush of the Pele Yoetz is that this rule applies to the Mitzvah of Simcha/happiness as well.
Of course, if things are going great, and you’re sitting in the lap of luxury, having just eaten your second steak and your third glass of wine, with no worries, it’s no chiddush to be happy.
But a person with challenges, worries, and difficulties, who is able to overcome his sorrows with his bitachon, and reaches simcha, oh, the reward for that is great!!
לפום צערא אגרא
According to the pain, is the reward.
The Pele Yoetz continues, and says How sweet is our religion, that tells us us to be happy, and then rewards us for being happy!
You can’t beat that!
The Ramban adds a chiddush to this concept: In the story of Lot, who was in Sedom when it was supposed to be destroyed, he was supposed to be destroyed as well. Why was Sedom supposed to be destroyed? Because of a lack of Hessed/ kindness. Specifically, they did not believe in taking in guests. In order for Lot to be saved, he had to take guests in. The merit of that would save him. So, the angels came in the form of guests, and he invited them in. As we know, his wife snitched to neighbors, by asking for salt for her guests. She, in turn, was turned into a pillar of salt.
Lot did pass the test, but it says that initially, when he first invited them in, they did not want to come. He had to pressure and plead with them.
The Ramban says that G-d made it difficult for Lot, because he needed a bigger merit. He needed more reward, so therefore G-d made it harder for him. This is a rule in life:
Anytime G-d gives us difficulties that we have to overcome, they’re there because we need that extra tension. Sometimes during exercise, people use a rubber resistance-band. But if you stand too close to the wall, there is no stretch, or resistance. There needs to be the right amount of tension, in order build to up the muscles.
That’s what Hashem is doing for us. He wants to create the maximum reward for us.
So, getting back to Simcha, Hashem wants to give us such great reward for Simcha that He puts these bumps in the road, right in the middle of the holiday of Succot. When we overcome it all, and are b’Simcha, the reward is great!
Furthermore, regarding the rule from the Gemarah that there is no reward in this world for Mitzvot, the Chida tells us we do get reward in this world for having the simcha/happiness of a Mitzvah. That part is our own addition, so we get rewarded for that here in this world.
An added chiddush is that while a person does the Mitzvah of simcha on Succot, he can be simcha, b’simcha. He can be happy to be happy!! He can be happy that Hashem said that we should be happy on Succot. There’s even more reward for that. It’s endless!
That’s the beauty of Bitachon.
All of this can only happen with Bitachon.
That’s why Zman Simchatenu isn’t Pesach or Shavuot. We don’t have the tools to be b’simcha in those times, like we do on the holiday of Succot, when we are in the Succah, with the power of bitachon.
Therefore, we wish everyone a Hag Sameach, a happy holiday, and an appreciation of the Mitzvah of simcha, and of working on Simcha.
Have a wonderful day.