For those people that noticed that I missed two days and reached out to me, I appreciate the concern. I was just a little busy before the holiday. I apologize.
Today we're going to talk a bit about the connection between humility and the holiday of Succot. The Rambam tells us, in the Mishnayot Rosh Hashanah, that the high holiday season is a time of fear, trepidation, and humility, and therefore it's not a time for Hallel. We don't sing Hallel because Hallel does not match those feelings. The Rambam also talks about Sukkot being days of humility and he writes in Moreh Nevuchim that it’s a time where we contemplate our beginnings. We think about where we came from. We came from humble beginnings. We were in Egypt, we were in the desert in huts. Amd look where we are today, in our beautiful homes. So we go back into the huts to remind ourselves of those humble beginnings.
But the humility of Sukkot actually requires Hallel.
So what's the difference between the humility of the high holidays and the humility of Succot?
The answer is based on a very important principle. There are two approaches of Teshuva. One is the approach called Teshuva M’Yirah/ Teshuva out of fear, and the other one is called Teshuva M’Ahava/Teshuva out of love.
The high holiday season is called the Yamim Noraim/the Awesome Days, the Days of Fear. It’s when we are under judgment, when we are worried. Our approach is, ‘I want to come back. I don't want anything to happen, heaven forbid. I want to have a good judgment, and therefore I'm on my best behavior.’ That's called Teshuva M’Yirah. Teshuva M’Ahava, however, comes out of love. It comes from of a feeling of, ‘How could I let my Father down? How could I have done that? I have so much gratitude and so much feeling of wanting to repay… How did I let my Father down?’ That's a Teshuva from Love. So there are two humilities that we have to go through. The first humility is the humility of the high
Holidays where I'm humbled out of fear and trepidation. And that's not a time for Hallel, that's not a time for joyous song.
On the other hand, now we're in the season of Teshuva M ‘Ahava, where we repent out of love, and we're humbled out of our tremendous gratitude. So it’s a humility, not of fear, but a humility of gratitude. Like we say in Nishmat, “If my mouth was full of song like the ocean, we would not be able to thank Hashem for the abundance of blessing.” We're humbled from gratitude. We're humbled from blessings. That is the approach of the holiday of Sukkot- humility with a slightly different twist, humility that comes from love and gratitude. So, our job during this holiday is to keep on focusing on all the wonderful things that we receive. As always, all of this is connected with Bitachon and Emunah, because we can’t there unless we really believe that everything that we're receiving, we're receiving from Hashem, and we didn't do anything- It's all Hashem. We have to keep on reiterating in our mind, it's all Hashem. That's the humility that we should reach on the holiday of Succot.