Rabbi Andrew Shaw

Rabbi Andrew Shaw

Earning Our Simcha

As a kid growing up in Kingsbury in the 70s and 80s, I loved Sukkot. Sukkot meant the wonderful Sukkah Crawl, when people opened their Sukkot to the community. It was one of the highlights of the communal year. We would walk from sukkah to sukkah, eating, drinking, singing and having a fantastic time. Over the first two days of the chag and Shabbat Chol HaMoed, we could visit over fifty sukkot! Then there was Simchat Torah, when the shul was filled with singing and dancing, when there were sweets everywhere and everyone was in a good mood. It was a special community atmosphere which enveloped all of us, from young children to grandparents, and unquestionably the highlight of the shul year. But something always puzzled me. Just before Sukkot, we observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As a child, this stood out as a uniquely intense experience. The shul was so packed we even had an overflow service. People came that I never saw the rest of the year. And what did they come for? To sit in shul and pray (or just sit there) – for hours on end!

Then, when Sukkot and Simchat Torah came round just a few days later and the amazing fun began, the people who had come specifically for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were nowhere to be seen. We were back to just the regular crowd. Why? The simple answer is that these people were “three-times-a-year Jews” – and so they tragically didn’t get to see the simcha of Sukkot. On a deeper level, however, these Jews sadly never learned a beautiful teaching of Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, the Kedushat Levi.

Rav Levi Yitzchak explains that there are two parallel holiday cycles in the Jewish year, each of which lasts 51 days. The “national holiday cycle” of the Jewish people begins on Pesach and culminates in Shavuot, while the “personal holiday cycle” begins with Rosh Chodesh Elul and culminates with Shemini Atzeret. Each of these holiday cycles demand hard work and effort to achieve spiritual growth. During Sefirat HaOmer, we literally count each day, as if to measure and track our spiritual toil. Our personal holiday cycle demands even more; first the repentance of Elul, and then the intense days of the Aseret Yemei Teshuva, the Ten Days of Repentance. Only after the hard work of Sefirat HaOmer, Elul and the Aseret Yemei Teshuva do we reach days of great celebration. The final days of each of these cycles – Shavuot and Shemini Atzeret – are both called “Atzeret”; they are both days in which we look back at what we have accomplished and celebrate together with G-d. Our hard work and simcha are bound up with one another; the incredible national and personal joy of these days is only possible because of the effort we invested beforehand.

Sadly, far too many Jews experience only part of the Jewish holiday cycle. They attend shul only for the Days of Awe and introspection, but do not return for the joyous conclusion of these days on Sukkot and Simchat Torah. It’s no surprise that their impression of Judaism is, as Rabbi Sacks zt”l said, “too much oy, not enough joy”. If only they would join us for Sukkot, they would experience the great sweetness and joy of Judaism, a joy unlike any other! “You shall live in sukkot for seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in sukkot” (Vayikra 23:42). May we soon see the day when all of Am Yisrael celebrates together on Sukkot, speedily in our days! Chag sameach! Rabbi Andrew Shaw is the Chief Executive of Mizrachi UK.