SIMCHA ON YOM TOV

The mitzvah of simcha on Yom Tov is not mentioned on Pesach at all, on Shavuos it is mentioned once and on Succos it is mentioned twice.

In respect of Shavuos the Torah tells us at the end of the sedra ראה, chapter ט''ז, posek י''א.
ושמחת לפני ה' אלקיך אתה ובנך ובתך ועבדך ואמתך והלוי אשר בשעריך והגר והיתום והאלמנה אשר בקרבך במקום אשר יבחר ה' אלקיך לשכן שמו שם

And you shall rejoice before Hashem, your G-d, you and your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid servant, the Levite who lives in your gates, the proselyte, the orphan and the widow who are in your midst, in the place which Hashem will choose to make his name dwell there.

From the wording of the פסוק it appears that this mitzvah of simcha does not just apply to the males but to everybody in the Bnei Yisroel.

Further on, where Succos is mentioned, the Torah says that on each of the שלש רגלים, the high festivals, the males should come to Jerusalem in the very same place, במקום אשר יבחר.

Here, however, it appears that in the case of Shavuos the Torah is telling us that everybody should join in the simcha and that it should be at the place of the Shechina, namely the בית המקדש, the Temple. Why should it be that just in the case of Shavuos, everybody should be enjoined to come to Jerusalem and the Temple and join the simcha?

Perhaps this could be understood with a fact mentioned by Reb Chaim Vital, the chief pupil of the Arizal, Rabbi Yitzchok Luria and the person who wrote down his deep and mystical teachings.

He stated that the Arizal told him that he had reached his very high levels, מדרגות, because he performed mitzvos and learned Torah b’simcha, joyfully.

One can, perhaps, understand why this was by comparing it in some small way to the fact that the Queen of England has garden parties and many people attend and consider it a privilege. She is shown due reverence and people are in awe of her on these occasions.

If, however, a person shows genuine happiness at being invited and states this to the Queen herself, it would be very possible and even likely that the Queen’s reaction would be to invite that person into her personal apartment for a private audience.

That person would be privy to secrets not afforded to other people.

The Torah was given on Shavuos, Hashem, Himself, בכבודו ובעצמו, proclaimed the ten commandments to all of the Bnei Yisroel, male, female, children etc. Every year, when Shavuos comes round again, a הארה, a certain illumination of that happening returns and we are all given the chance to have a very strong spiritual uplift akin to that which the Bnei Yisroel experienced at מתן תורה.

The holiest place in the world where the Shechina resided was the Bais Hamikdosh and, therefore, I would suggest that all people, men, women, children etc. were enjoined to visit the Bais Hamikdosh on Shavuos with simcha. By doing that, they were enabled to have a special uplift which otherwise they could not have aspired to.

In some small way, nowadays, by us all attending the בתי מקדש מעט, the small Shuls and places of learning on Shavuos and accepting, once again, the Torah, b’simcha, we can also aspire to a special spiritual uplift but, understandably in a lesser form.

I understand that in certain kehillas, including Lubavitch, to this day, it is the custom that all members of each family, young and old come to Shul on Shavuos to hear the עשרת הדיברות.

Perhaps the above idea is the מקור, the source of this minhag.

Read More......

SUCCOS פרי החג

Towards the end of the sedra Pinchas, the Torah enumerates all the different sacrifices which are to be brought regularly each day, on Shabbos, and then on the Yomim Tovim. The final parshah concerns the קרבנות of Succos. Many of you will be aware that during the first seven days of Succos, there are, in total, 70 bulls to be sacrificed in descending order, that is, the first day 13, the second day 12 until on the seventh day 7 were sacrificed. Finally on the last day, שמיני עצרת, there was one bull offered.

חז''ל tell us that the 70 were offered for the 70 major nations of the world followed by the one for the Bnei Yisroel.

I believe that an introduction to the Dvar Torah below will help appreciate and clarify it fully.

In addition to the letters and words written in a Sefer Torah which are, of course, as given to Moshe by Hashem, there was also given to him as תורה של בעל פה the vocalisation of each word being by way of חולם, קמץ, פתח etc. This is not written into the Sefer Torah by there is a mesoirah as to exactly how to pronounce each word. This, of course, is printed in the Chumashim.

In addition, there is a mesoirah concerning the notes (trop), known as טעמי המקרא. These טעמי המקרא, roughly translated as reasons or interpretations of the verse, consist of a number of notes sung each in a different way. Again, this has come down to us as a mesoirah, a tradition.

There are high notes, the greatest of which being the שלשלת and there are a number of other high notes such as פזר, תלישא גדולה etc.

This is what we hear by the Baal Koreh read in tune every Shabbos and whenever a Sefer Torah is taken out and read in public.

These notes are not there haphazardly but have a definite purpose and not for nothing are they called טעמי המקרא. They help us to understand and give interpretations, albeit sometimes rather hidden, which enable us to understand better or give us fresh insights into the meaning of actual words in Torah.

If one looks carefully at the whole of the sedra Pinchas, which I believe is the second longest sedra at 168 verses, there is no פזר until the instruction concerning the sacrifices, קרבנות, to be brought on the second day of Succos. We find the words as followsומנחתם (their meal offering) ונסכיהם (their wine offerings) לפרים (for the bulls). On the middle word ונסכיהם there is a פזר, this is followed by לפרים with a תלישא גדולה on it. Both of these are known as very “high” notes in other words, ones to which great emphasis applies.

If we then proceed to the third day we find the same טעמי המקרא and strangely enough, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh day again, we have the same phenomenon of an ordinary note, a מונח, under the word ומנחתם but a פזר above the ונסכיהם and a תלישא גדולה above the word לפרים.

To add to this unusual phenomenon, if we go back to the first day of Succos, there is no פזר or תלישא גדולה at all when the sacrifices for the first day are mentioned, nor is there a פזר or תלישא גדולה on שמיני עצרת, which follows immediately on after the seventh day.

As I mentioned above these are known as טעמי המקרא, that is to give us an interpretation of the verses.

I would like to suggest that the reason why these particular טעמי המקרא, trop, are used is connected with a Halacha which we find concerning Yom Tov. There is a mitzvah of simcha on Yom Tov and especially on Succos where it is mentioned by the Torah twice specifically, at the end of Parshas ראה. The רמב''ם paskens אין שמחה אלא בבשר ויין . The way to fulfil the mitzvah of simcha is with meat and wine.

We find that people are always excited about an impending Yom Tov and when the first day arrives, especially of Succos, the excitement is great. However, by the second day and third, etc. this gradually subsides. What I am suggesting is that in order to ensure that the simcha is kept at a high level the Torah is hinting that one should eat and drink and therefore, be merry and in order to emphasise this, on the word ונסכיהם which is the wine libations, a פזר is intoned. On לפרים that is the best type of meat, one has a תלישא גדולה. פזר translates as to spread out or spend, in other words, spend money on the wine and, for meat, תלישא גדולה, exert great effort to obtain this and eat it. This is, therefore, emphasised from the second day to the seventh day inclusive.

When it comes to the last day, שמיני עצרת, the Gomora tells us that this was a רגל בפני עצמו, a Yom Tov for itself. Therefore, inherently, the simcha is there for the day itself and, of course, this is the day of Simchas Torah in Eretz Yisroel and leads into Simchas Torah for the rest of the Diaspora. There is, therefore, no need to create extra simcha by the consumption of wine and meat.

In respect of the word ומנחתם, which refers to the flour which was also brought at the same time with every sacrifice, there is no need for a “high” note because that did not add to the simcha. However, it is noteworthy to mention that if one takes all the measurements, עשרוניםof סלת, fine flour, which had to be brought during the whole of סוכות and שמיני עצרת, in respect of all the various קרבנות and add them together, they come to 348 esronim in total. This is the exact gemmatria of the word שמח.

Let us all enjoy ourselves with simcha on Succos, זמן שמחתנו.

ח' תשרי תשס''ט

Read More......

SUCCOS פרי עץ הדר

The only mitzvah in Torah where we are told to perform the mitzvah with “הדר” with special beauty, is in the case of taking the esrog on the first day of Succos. The Torah says ולקחתם לכם ביום הראשון פרי עץ הדר and you should take for yourselves on the first day a fruit of the tree “hadar”. The mitzvah is on every Jewish male and is only for the first day.

In the Bais Hamikdosh, one had to perform the mitzvah for the whole week of Succos and nowadays as a remembrance of that, we take the esrog and the lulov, the four Minim, the whole week (except for Shabbos). Much has been written about the significance of taking this particular fruit and why it should be hadar. A thought that has occurred to me which I have not seen mentioned anywhere, is as follows.

On Yom Kippur every year, every practising Jew becomes like a new creation, something like the creation of the world originally.

In the same way as after the original creation of the world, on 6th day, אדם הראשון, Adam, was created, so also the first day of Succos is the 6th day from Yom Kippur.

אדם הראשון was commanded ומעץ הדעת לא תאכל ממנו from the tree of knowledge you should not eat. He unfortunately transgressed this by eating the fruit which Chava gave him.

The Gomora discusses which fruit grew on that tree, and one of the Tannoim states that it was an esrog. Furthermore, the Ramban in Parshas Emor says that we accept this as being the Halacha. Accordingly, I think that we can understand why we are commanded to take this particular fruit on the first day of Succos.

When אדם הראשון ate from the עץ הדעת the whole original creation was spoiled. We take the esrog on the first day of Succos, which is the 15th day of Tishrei and the 6th day after Yom Kippur, a sort of anniversary for אדם הראשון. By virtue of us not eating the פרי עץ הדר on that day but keeping a mitzvah which Hashem commanded us, we, in some way, help to rectify that which was spoiled originally. That is the reason why it must be hadar, the most beautiful of the fruits because obviously, when Hashem created fruits originally in the world, they were all הדר. We are told by חז''ל as well that originally all fruits and the trees on which they grew had the same taste if one ate them, but this changed, except in the case of an esrog. טעם עצו ופריו שוים.

With this idea one can also understand a famous חז''ל on the words ולקחתם לכם ביום הראשון you should take for yourselves on the first day (of Succos). חז''ל comment ראשון לחשבון עונות the first to the reckoning of sins. Normally this is translated as meaning that after Yom Kippur, because people are so busy organising the mitzvos of Succos, there is no time to sin, whereas on the first day of Succos one can already settle down, catch one’s breath and unfortunately perhaps not do the right thing and, therefore Hashem commences counting and looking into matters.

According to the idea I mentioned above, however, it refers back to the time that Odom הראשון and Chava had sinned and means that we, ourselves, by taking the פרי עץ הדר are helping to rectify that first day where there were the original עונות, being the sins of Odom and Chava.

One could also find an allusion to the Gomora that says that הדר means fruit that, דר, dwells on the tree from year to year, because an esrog is unique in being the fruit that once it has grown to normal size does not fall off or rot, it can continue for another two or three years in fact without being spoiled, it just grows bigger.

This again would be relevant to what has been stated above, namely that this all refers back to what happened years ago.

ז'' תשרי תשס''ט

Read More......