parsha of the week: rabbi avi billet

The festival of Sukkot has arrived, a time of joy

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The Torah commands us twice to rejoice on Sukkot. For Shavuot it only says to rejoice one time. For Pesach “joy” is not mentioned at all (it’s difficult to rejoice when you’re thinking about the chametz you might still have in your house).

“V’samachta b’chagekha — v’hayita’ akh sa’me’ach” (you shall rejoice, and be only happy) (Devarim 16:14-15).

Only happy! Does that mean you can’t be sad at all? Does that mean you can’t have any not-so-happy thoughts or feelings? How does a person do that?

Rabbi Nachman of Braslav introduced the idea which became a popular song — most of us probably know the song better than we know how to live up to its teaching — Mitzvah Gedolah Lihyot B’simcha Tamid (it’s a great mitzvah to be joyous always).

Rabbi Nachman acknowledges that it is human nature to be more easily depressed than overjoyed, and that life has its ways of doing that to a person. “For all ailments come only from sadness and depression,” he writes. “Therefore we must rejoice with all that we can, even with words of nonsense.”

This could mean to tell jokes, to talk about nothing, to act silly. Whatever it takes to help you be happy, that’s what you need to do.

The Talmud (Taanit 8a) says, “Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi says, ‘(if you are happy (or accepting) of the trials life gives you, you bring salvation to the world’!”

Life is a test. Sometimes there are ups and sometimes there are downs.

The Mishnah in Avot (4:1) says, “Who is wealthy? The one who is happy with his portion.” In other words, non-physical wealth is determined by the state of your heart. If you are at peace with the situation life puts you in, you are “wealthy.”

The Torah tells us in the middle of the tokhacha of Ki Tavo, one of the reasons why the curses come upon us is “when you had plenty of everything, you would not serve G-d your Lord with happiness and a glad heart.” When times were good, the Torah is saying, we needed to serve G-d with pure joy. We need to remember to thank G-d for the good things in our lives: “Thank you, G-d. Thank you for all the good in my life. Thank you for the friends and the love in my life, for the joy I experience from being alive, the joy I experience from serving You, the joy I get out of being a Jew, the joy I get out of doing for others, the joy I get from learning Torah, the joy I get from living Shabbos. the joy I get from celebrating that we have the Torah, the joy I get from having a relationship with You!”

On these verses in Devarim, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch says, “the joy of your blessedness comes not from your source of income, or your sources of entertainment, but from the Lord your G-d Who bestows this bountiful blessing on you from the place of His Torah and through the means of His Teaching, if you dwell in His tent faithfully.”

It was King David who wrote in Psalm 122, “I rejoiced with those who said, ‘Let us go to the House of G-d’.” David himself provided an example of how a person can completely rejoice — letting go of all inhibition — in the service of G-d. Samuel II chapter 6 describes how he danced in front of the Ark as it was brought to Ir David, Jerusalem, in anticipation of the building of the Temple. This is how we begin to experience true joy.

Twice a day, for close to two months now, synagogue-goers have been saying “L’David Hashem Ori.”

“One request I ask of G-d,” L’David reads. “Let me dwell in the House of G-d all the days of my life. To gaze upon the pleasant ways of G-d and to meditate in His sanctuary.”

If you had one request to make of G-d, what would it be? Why would King David write this as his sole request? Maybe King David did not have a mortgage and tuition bills.

Only one thing mattered to King David — the joy he could get out of life. And he knew that all real joy emanates from the House of G-d, where we seed our relationship with Him. It there there that we can let go of every inhibition, where we can sing and dance and rejoice in our lives dedicated to the service of G-d.

When everything else goes, we still have G-d. That is something for which we all can be truly joyous.

A version of this column first appeared in The Jewish Star in 2009.

Contact Rabbi Avi Billet: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com