Please join us in shul for Shabbat and Sukkot
For a guide on how to say Kiddush in the Sukkah, click here.
Three times the Torah goes out of its way to tell us to be joyful during the holiday of Sukkot (Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16). In fact, it tells us we must be joyful!
For some of us, capturing a sense of joy during the holiday may not be a problem. You may simply relish the experience of sitting in a sukkah, of shaking the lulav and etrog, of eating festive meals, or going to shul. Joy may come easily when you engage in the rituals associated with the holiday of Sukkot.
For others of us, however, tapping into a feeling of joy on command may feel contrived, fake, or impossible. We might ask ourselves: What does it mean to be commanded to be joyful?
In the Talmud, the rabbis give one answer to this question: The joy of the holiday comes with the consumption of wine and meat. Through this answer, the rabbis concede that we cannot simply make ourselves joyful on command. Instead, we manufacture joy through consuming alcohol, whose effects can sometimes be mistaken for joy, and meat, which may deeply satisfy our hunger, when we sit for festive meals.
While I, personally, enjoy a glass of wine every once in a while and like steak as much as the next person, this answer does not satisfy me. In fact, the effects of wine or the satisfaction of meat may bring a temporary, surface level sense of happiness. Yet, surely when the Torah tells us to be full of joy, it is not telling us to simply satisfy some base desire for the numbness brought by alcohol or the satisfaction of meat. Joy runs much deeper than those feelings.
Oddly enough, I rediscovered a deeper meaning of joy after a close friend of mine suddenly died. I was most certainly not joyful at his passing. I was in deep despair and pain. However, my community—my friends, and family—lifted me up, brought me close, and gave me comfort in this lowest of lows. After spending hours with friends who were grieving alongside me, I experienced a new feeling along with my grief and despair: Joy.
I experienced this joy through my feeling of a deep appreciation for those in my life who helped me overcome my pain. I felt appreciation for the ability to feel loved and supported, and to give love and support. This love and support were crucial to helping me process, and helped shape how I experience community. There is not a day that goes by when I do not wish I could catch up with my friend; I continue to miss him these years later. Yet, the comfort that I received, the unconditional support that I felt, brought me a deep sense of belonging, love, and validation. Those feelings brought me joy.
The Talmud teaches us that on Sukkot “we emerge from our permanent residence and reside in a temporary residence.” On Sukkot, when we are meant to feel joy, we emerge from our world of comfort, and sit in a temporary hut, a hut whose roof always seems like it is on the verge of collapse. It is a holiday during which we remind ourselves that we cannot do life alone: The roof might just cave in. We need our community to be there with us, we need to support others, to feel supported by others, to offer love and receive love.
Joy is not cheap happiness. Joy comes when we invest deeply in our relationships and our communities. It is the feeling that, when our sukkah falls, when our roofs cave in, people are there for us no matter what.
Let us use Sukkot to remember that our community is our greatest source of joy; the people who surround us, who support us, and who love us in good times and bad bring joy.
Read more about this week's parasha here.
I wish you a gut yontif and a chag sameach, a holiday filled with the deepest of joy.
-Rabbi Eitan Bloostein
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