Sukkos - The Inner Meaning of the Holiday in Light of Chassidus | Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:00 What is the meaning of the joy of Sukkos? We are in the middle of the month of Tishrei. The first half of the month, its opening days, were the Days of Awe, days of reverence: Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days of Teshuvah, and Yom Kippur. On those days, each of us was stirred to do teshuvah, and we prayed. From the depths of our hearts, we asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu to forgive us for all our sins, and we asked Him to grant each of us a good inscription and sealing for a good, sweet year. The Days of Awe—Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—have passed, and now we come to Sukkos, the season of our rejoicing. The question is: What is the reason for this joy? What, precisely, is the deeper meaning, the essence, of the joy of Sukkos? There is actually a kind of chain here. The festivals of Tishrei are not just several occasions that happen to fall together, as though a number of holidays coincidentally ended up in the same month. Surely, the fact that we celebrate these festivals means there is a chain, a sequence, a deep and essential inner connection linking all the parts of Tishrei’s festivals. We had the month of Elul beforehand, then the days of Selichos, then Rosh Hashanah. Then came the seven days within what we call the Ten Days of Teshuvah, followed by Yom Kippur, the one holy day of the year, and from there we moved into the joyous days of Sukkos. During the four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos, as the Midrash says, one person is busy with his sukkah and another with his lulav. Everyone is rushing to prepare for Sukkos. Then Sukkos arrives, the season of our rejoicing, and after its seven days comes Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah. So the obvious question is whether there is a connection linking all these parts, all these occasions—and surely there is. What is the explanation? That is one question. There is another question, concerning Sukkos itself. The festival of

02:27 Sukkos has a number of mitzvos that we observe, not just one. On Rosh Hashanah, for example, the mitzvah of the day is the shofar. There is one central mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah: the shofar. Yom Kippur is a day of affliction. What happens on Sukkos? On Sukkos we have several things, and at first glance it is a little hard to understand the connection between all the mitzvos and actions the Torah asks of us on this festival. There is “the season of our rejoicing,” the mitzvah to rejoice: “You shall rejoice on your festival.” Although this applies to all three festivals, we see that in the siddur, Sukkos in particular is called “the season of our rejoicing.” Pesach is called “the season of our freedom,” connected with the Exodus from Egypt. Shavuos is called “the season of the giving of our Torah.” Sukkos and Simchas Torah are called in the Torah and in our prayers “the season of our rejoicing.” That means this is when joy is especially central. And as the Midrash says, joy is mentioned three times in connection with Sukkos, not just once. That tells us the joy here is something special. Then there is the mitzvah of dwelling in the sukkah, which is what gives the festival its name: Sukkos. In other words, a central part of this festival, its mitzvah, is to sit in the sukkah. What does this mitzvah mean? And what do we do in the sukkah? We eat, drink, sleep, and spend time there. As the Shulchan Aruch says, we do in the sukkah all the ordinary things a person does from day to day. Sukkos arrives, and we are told that for this week we need to sit in the sukkah and do all those simple things, but inside the sukkah. What does that mean? Then we have the mitzvah of taking the lulav, the Four Species: the lulav, esrog, hadassim, and aravos. What does this mitzvah mean? And why were these four species chosen for it? What is the connection between all these mitzvos? What is the connection between the mitzvah to rejoice

04:40 and the mitzvah to sit in the sukkah and eat and drink there, and the mitzvah to take the Four Species on Sukkos? Surely they are connected. The Shulchan Aruch even says that the ideal way to take the Four Species is inside the sukkah, which shows that dwelling in the sukkah and taking the Four Species are connected. Then there is Simchas Beis Hashoevah. What is Simchas Beis Hashoevah? The Gemara in Tractate Sukkah tells us that in the time of the Beis Hamikdash there was a special practice, a halachah given to Moshe at Sinai: the water libation. It is an interesting thing. On every festival, special offerings were brought for that festival, and along with the offerings there were libations, poured on the altar: wine, oil, all the libations that had to accompany the offerings. Then Sukkos comes, and we are told that there is something special. It is not stated explicitly in the Written Torah; there is a whole extended discussion of it. It is a halachah given to Moshe at Sinai that there must also be a water libation. Something unique happens on Sukkos: the drawing of the water. That is why it is called Simchas Beis Hashoevah, the celebration of the water-drawing, because the water was drawn with tremendous joy. As our Sages describe so wonderfully, they would dance and rejoice all night long. “We did not taste sleep.” “Whoever did not see the rejoicing of Simchas Beis Hashoevah never saw rejoicing in his life.” Simchas Beis Hashoevah—and what did they do? They poured water. What was the great joy in the water libation? They made a whole celebration of it. Of course, there are many explanations for each detail, but the main question we want to focus on is: What is the connection? What links all the mitzvos we perform on Sukkos? So, to sum up, today we are going to explain two general points: the connection between the festivals of Tishrei, between the first part and the second part—what, overall, is the chain linking the festivals of Tishrei—

06:58 and then we will try to understand what connects all the mitzvos and actions we perform on Sukkos. We will begin with a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. Today we will study—or rather, focus on—two broad, central, fundamental ideas. These are what we take from Tishrei into the entire year, because Tishrei and its festivals are not merely holidays and occasions confined to this particular month. They give us strength. They are what we call all-encompassing festivals: occasions from which a Jew draws life for the entire year. As the Midrash says, we call Tishrei “the seventh month.” The Midrash says that the word “seventh” is also related to the word for “full.” Tishrei is the seventh month because it is full of festivals and holidays, full of blessings, as the Midrash says. It contains an abundance of produce and winepresses: it is the festival of ingathering, when we gather everything material from the fields in Tishrei. At the same time, we gather all the mitzvos, because it contains Rosh Hashanah and the shofar, Yom Kippur, and Sukkos—all the festivals. But it is not only full; it also fills us. In other words, from this month we receive strength and sustenance for the whole year. So understanding the deeper meaning, understanding the roots of Tishrei’s festivals and the connection between all the mitzvos we perform on this wonderful festival of Sukkos, will give us a deeper perspective. We will be able to live with it and draw inspiration from it every day of the year. The Baal Shem Tov tells us: The verse says, “Then the maiden shall rejoice in the dance.” We read this verse in the haftarah on Rosh Hashanah. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, we read from Yirmiyahu in the haftarah, including this chapter toward the end of Yirmiyahu, where these words appear: “Then the maiden shall rejoice in the dance.”

09:15 This is talking about joy. We know that in Tanach, as in Shir Hashirim, Knesses Yisroel—the Jewish people—is compared to a bride, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu is compared to a groom. So “maiden” refers to Knesses Yisroel. It is also connected with the month of Elul, whose zodiac sign is Virgo, the maiden. The verse is speaking about the Jewish people and says, “Then the maiden will rejoice in the dance.” In other words, the great joy of the dance is really the theme of Sukkos. The Baal Shem Tov says that the occasions of Elul and Tishrei are about a very, very great joy: the joy of coming close after having been distant. This is called a machol, a particular kind of dance. In this dance, you move apart and come close again. Sometimes at celebrations you see people dancing in a circle. A group stands together, and as the joy grows, they move apart from one another and then come back together. This moving apart and coming together makes the joy stronger and stronger each time. That joy is called a machol. The word “az,” “then,” has the numerical value of eight. The zayin is the seven days of Sukkos: “You shall celebrate Sukkos for seven days.” The alef is the eighth day, Shemini Atzeres. “Then the maiden will rejoice in the dance.” Knesses Yisroel rejoices on Sukkos with the joy of the dance—of coming close after having been distant. The word machol has two meanings in the Holy Tongue. One is a dance, the dance we described, in which moving apart and coming close again causes the joy to burst forth with even greater strength and intensity. Machol is also related to mechilah, forgiveness: Yom Kippur is a day of pardon and forgiveness. “Then the maiden will rejoice in the dance.” That is, on Sukkos the joy of the forgiveness and atonement of Yom Kippur bursts forth. What can this be compared to? To the king’s son. There is the well-known parable from the Baal Shem Tov about a king’s son who is close to his father, the king. He is the king’s only son, and the king loves him with an intrinsic

11:59 love—the deepest love there can be. Imagine a son born to a king in his old age, an only son. How much love the king showers on him! He gives this son the best education, the greatest closeness, the deepest connection he has. Then, for various reasons, the son grows distant. First he leaves home, a physical distance, but that also leads to a spiritual distance. He goes far away and finds himself among people opposed to the king, associating with people who do not share the king’s outlook. The purpose of his journey was actually to bring what he had received from the king to that distant place, to uplift it and have an influence there; through that, he too would be uplifted. But the son forgets his mission. Instead of carrying it out, he does the opposite: he grows distant and coarse, becoming one of the lowly, degraded people of that faraway place. He keeps drifting farther away until he is held captive and imprisoned among criminals, utterly removed from the king’s home. Then comes the stage when the son looks for his father—the stage of searching: “He will seek his father.” The wise son sees that there is a distance. The father grows distant from the son, or the son from the father; it happens on both sides. When the son distances himself from his father, that in turn causes the father to seemingly withdraw, hide, and distance himself from the son. But of course, the father’s hiding is not real. It is only outward. The father hides and moves away because he wants his son to look for him. And here there are two kinds of children. There is the foolish child: he cannot see his father or mother, so he starts crying. He cries and cries until he is tired of crying, gives up, and goes back to his games. That is it. He forgets about his father; his father is not

14:19 there. Then there is the wise son, who understands the secret. He understands that his father never really went away. His father is there. The concealment is only meant to awaken the son’s longing, his thirst, his desire to search for his father. On the contrary, the distance prompts the son to search. “Let us search our ways and examine them.” The Jew begins to search. The king’s son really represents each and every one of us, the Jewish people. “All Jews are children of kings,” as the Gemara says in Tractate Shabbos and elsewhere. A Jew is a king’s son. The son has gone far from his father the king’s home, and the father, so to speak, has hidden from him too. “I will surely hide My face on that day.” There is a concealment of the face. But the Jew is the wise son: he knows that the point is to search. As it says in Shir Hashirim, “I will seek the one my soul loves.” I seek, I search. A Jew searches for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This begins in Elul, when the work of taking stock of oneself and doing teshuvah begins, when a Jew seeks to come closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The entire forty-day period from Rosh Chodesh Elul until Yom Kippur is this process of searching: the king’s son comes, searches, and draws near. Rosh Hashanah is the cry of the king’s son. As the Baal Shem Tov explains, it is a cry without words. Precisely because it has no words, it is the cry of the very essence of a Jew’s soul, coming from the deepest place. The love never really disappeared; it was there all along, only covered over. When a Jew blows the shofar, its sound carries the inner voice of his soul crying out to Hakadosh Boruch Hu: “Father, Father, I am Yours!” That cry awakens an immense, inward love—Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s deep love for Knesses Yisroel. Then come the Ten Days of Teshuvah, when we

16:37 receive pardon, forgiveness, and atonement. On Yom Kippur, Hakadosh Boruch Hu pardons and forgives a Jew for all his sins and transgressions. Then there is the bond, the cleaving, the wonderful closeness: a Jew draws near to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu draws near to the Jew. This is the theme of Yom Kippur that we discussed. On that day itself, a Jew’s deepest, essential bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu is revealed, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu pardons and forgives him. From there comes “Then the maiden will rejoice in the dance.” Sukkos is the joy of the lost king’s son returning to his father’s home. The father who had been hiding—the concealment of his face—once again shines his face upon him: “May He shine His face upon you.” The father, the King of kings, shows his son, the Jewish people, a shining face, and this arouses the greatest joy. This is the great, doubled joy that the Torah speaks of: “You shall rejoice on your festival,” the joy of Sukkos. But when we spoke about Rosh Hashanah, we said that it is not only about a Jew’s search for Hakadosh Boruch Hu and his relationship with Him. There is something more—another point we discussed: crowning the King. On Rosh Hashanah, a Jew crowns Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. As the Gemara says, “Recite the verses of kingship before Me on Rosh Hashanah so that you will crown Me King over you.” On Rosh Hashanah, a Jew once again crowns Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. When we crown Hakadosh Boruch Hu, it is not only as King over me. Of course, that comes first: He is King over me; He is my King. “You shall surely appoint a king over yourself.” I am Your servant, I am Your child. “Our Father, our King,” “the King of Israel and its Redeemer.” But we ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to be King over the entire world. We say in the wording of every blessing

18:46 That is why, before every mitzvah and in every blessing before eating, we say: “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the world.” A Jew is not satisfied with Hakadosh Boruch Hu being our G-d, the G-d of Israel, the G-d of the Jewish people. A Jew asks that Hakadosh Boruch Hu be King over the world, King over the entire world. On Rosh Hashanah, throughout the prayers, we see this at the heart of them all—in the Amidah, the central prayer of Rosh Hashanah. In Shacharis, Minchah, Mussaf and Maariv, in every prayer, we say again and again: “Reign over the entire world in Your glory; be exalted over all the earth in Your splendor; reveal the majesty of Your mighty glory to all the inhabitants of Your world. Let everything that has been made know that You made it, and everything that has been formed understand that You formed it. Let all who have breath in their nostrils say: Hashem, the G-d of Israel, is King, and His kingship rules over all.” In other words, a Jew waits, hopes, longs and wants to crown Hakadosh Boruch Hu King over the entire world. We spoke about this in connection with Rosh Hashanah. There is a wonderful Midrash in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer that Adam Harishon crowned Hakadosh Boruch Hu over all creation on Rosh Hashanah. And on Rosh Hashanah, a Jew, in effect, crowns Hakadosh Boruch Hu King over the entire world. The inner avodah of Rosh Hashanah is really twofold. First, there is the king’s son: the Jew does teshuvah. The Jew returns with true teshuvah, an inner teshuvah that means returning to Hashem, coming home. The king’s son returns from captivity and imprisonment and reconnects with his father, the king. The bond between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and the Jewish people is renewed. Alongside that is the crowning of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King over the entire world. A Jew asks, “Reveal the glory of Your kingship over us”—that the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu be revealed throughout the world. “Let everything that has been made know”—that everything in the physical world,

20:50 the inanimate, the plant life, the animals and human beings—that the entire world cry out: “There is nothing besides Him,” that nothing exists apart from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And that is what happens afterward on Yom Kippur. That is why, at the end of Yom Kippur, when a Jew reaches the deepest point in the Neilah prayer—we spoke about Neilah, the time when the doors are locked and the Jewish people remain inside, in the King’s chamber with the King Himself—what do we cry out in Neilah, at the very peak of the holy day of Yom Kippur? “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One.” The verses proclaiming His oneness: “Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingship forever and ever,” three times, and “Hashem is G-d,” seven times. We want, we ask and we cry out with all our hearts for the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu to be revealed throughout creation, in every detail of creation. That is, in essence, what we prayed for during the Ten Days of Teshuvah. On Sukkos, too, this is the joy: these things are revealed and brought down here below. During the Ten Days of Teshuvah, in the first part of the month of Tishrei, it is a prayer, a request, a plea. A Jew stirs his heart, cries out, asks, prays and wants with all his heart for it to happen. When Sukkos arrives, it happens in practice. This is when a Jew feels that Hakadosh Boruch Hu has truly heard our prayers. A Jew is absolutely certain, with a certainty that comes from the simple, wholehearted faith awakened in every Jew during these holy days. And so we are absolutely certain that this is taking place here below, in our world. There is this twofold bond and connection: a Jew connects with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with the great joy of drawing close to Him. That happens on Sukkos, along with the great revelation that Hakadosh Boruch Hu becomes King of the world and His oneness is revealed in every detail of creation. All of this is the great joy of Sukkos, and that is why we call it

23:14 “the time of our rejoicing.” The Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya, says that “our rejoicing” is in the plural: it is the joy of us both. It is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s joy in the community of Israel and the community of Israel’s joy in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It is the joy of an embrace, the great bond between a Jew and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and between Hakadosh Boruch Hu and a Jew. It is a twofold joy: “May Hashem rejoice in His works,” and “May Israel rejoice in its Maker.” A Jew rejoices with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu rejoices with the Jewish people. From this twofold joy comes the joy of “the time of our rejoicing.” That is why the unity of the Jewish people is emphasized on Sukkos in the deepest way. After all, we know that the vessel for all this blessing is unity. “Bless us, our Father, all of us as one.” We say in the prayers that Hakadosh Boruch Hu blesses us when we are all united as one. The unity of the Jewish people begins on Rosh Hashanah. Really, it is there throughout the year, but in a Jew’s personal avodah there is “You are standing today, all of you, before Hashem your G-d.” We always read Parshas Nitzavim before Rosh Hashanah. The Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya, says that “today” refers to Rosh Hashanah—“This day is the beginning of Your works.” “You are standing today,” on Rosh Hashanah: all Jewish souls, the entire Jewish people. We all stand together with kabbolas ol of the kingdom of Heaven, with that essential point of faith, of trust, of connection in which we are all one. The entire Jewish people are one people. That is precisely why it is the sound of the shofar, rather than words. With words there are differences: one person understands more, another less; one says more, another less. But in the simple sound of the shofar, which comes from a Jew’s soul, we are all one. That is what the shofar’s cry expresses: the unity of the Jewish people, “all of you standing together,” crowning Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. On Yom Kippur, we spoke of “once a year.” This is

25:31 the one and only. It is the moment when a Jew’s yechidah awakens—the deepest bond of a Jew, the very essence of a Jew’s soul, where the entire Jewish people are likewise one entity. That is why, “You shall be purified before Hashem your G-d”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu purifies the entire Jewish people. We all become clean. A new year begins, that “once a year,” when we become one. And that unity reaches Sukkos, where it is revealed in the world, in something tangible: the sukkah. What is a sukkah? A sukkah is a simple home. There are homes of poor people and homes of wealthy people. A sukkah is meant to be made from the leftovers of the threshing floor and the winepress. A sukkah is a structure of wood with schach, and in essence it says: we are all equal; we are all together. The Gemara says, “All of Israel are fit to sit in one sukkah.” In other words, according to halachah, each person does not need a private sukkah. The entire Jewish people can sit in one sukkah. But then, seemingly, there would not even be a perutah’s worth of it for each person! That is not necessary. As the Gemara explains, in principle the entire Jewish people can be accommodated in a single sukkah. That means the sukkah expresses the idea that the whole Jewish people are one entity. Then come the four species. There we see unity in an even deeper way. As the Midrash says, the four species symbolize four types of Jews. There are Jews like the esrog, which has both a pleasant fragrance and a good taste—both Torah and good deeds. There is a Jew like the lulav. The lulav has taste but no fragrance. In other words, the lulav comes from a date palm: dates have taste, but lack fragrance. So this represents Torah, with good deeds lacking. There is the Jew whose strength is primarily good deeds, represented by the hadassim. They have a pleasant fragrance but lack taste, which represents deeds

27:34 good deeds, but he lacks Torah study. And then there is the aravah, the simple Jew who lacks both Torah study and good deeds. The Baal Shem Tov would call him the simple person, the simple Jew—simply a Jew. And this very simple Jew, this aravah, is one of the Four Species: “Let them all become one bundle.” The entire Jewish people come together, and then, “Bless us, our Father, all as one”—Hashem’s blessing is revealed. And here lies the deepest joy of “he will rejoice.” “The season of our rejoicing”: the joy of a Jew with Hashem, and of Hashem with a Jew. But as we said, that is not enough. The goal is for it to permeate the reality of the entire world. And here we come to a wonderful explanation of how Sukkos—its mitzvos, all the mitzvos of Sukkos—affects creation, the whole reality of the world. The Rebbe spoke about this on one occasion. He spoke about it several times, but we’ll mention it because this year is a special year: fifty years since the Yom Kippur War. The Yom Kippur War, as its name suggests, began on Yom Kippur 5734. Half a century. A day or two later, on 13 Tishrei 5734, was the yahrzeit of the Rebbe Maharash, the fourth Chabad Rebbe. The Rebbe Maharash passed away on 13 Tishrei, and the Rebbe would customarily hold a farbrengen that night. The Rebbe came down for the farbrengen and began by saying that, in truth, it was difficult to farbreng. There was a war in Israel; Jews were in danger. How could we farbreng? A farbrengen is something joyful, sitting together. How could we farbreng when the situation was so difficult? Then the Rebbe cited a teaching of the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov taught us—and Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev repeated it in his name many times, saying that he would regularly tell the crowd—“Hashem is your shadow; Hashem is your keeper; Hashem is your shadow at your right hand.” The Baal Shem Tov said: Hashem is like a shadow. A shadow—whatever you

29:53 do, your shadow reflects every action. Hashem is our shadow. When we do something, Hashem, so to speak, reflects our actions back to us. When we Jews down here connect with one another, sit together, gather together in a joyful gathering, that joy arouses joy, so to speak, above, with Hashem. And when there is joy above, that joy brings blessing and abundance, breaks through all the decrees and accusations, and removes all the problems, all the troubles. This is also written in the Zohar. The Zohar says: Come and see. The upper world is a reflection, like a mirror of the lower world. Everything in the lower world is reflected in the upper world. When a person down here is joyful, says the Zohar, and has a bright countenance, he brings about joy and a bright countenance, so to speak, in the Shechinah. So the Rebbe said: Let us farbreng and rejoice. This joy will arouse joy above, and that will remove all the harsh judgments, all the decrees, and all the difficult things. Then the Rebbe delivered a maamar based on a teaching of the Rebbe Maharash, explaining something truly wonderful about the essence of Sukkos, connected to what we discussed earlier. Here is what he says: The Four Species have something very special that we don’t see in other plants. In general, our world is a world of multiplicity—multiplicity and separation. Everything is made up of many, many details. Multiplicity. There is multiplicity among inanimate things, plants, animals, and people; each thing differs from the next. Everything is made up of many elements, many details. Our world is a world of multiplicity. In Torah terminology, it is called a public domain. Not just in the halachic sense, but in a broader sense: many separate things. Everything is divided from everything else; each is separate from the next. A world of separation, a public domain. And you can see this

32:16 in the nature of everything: things are essentially separate. But in these plants—the lulav, the esrog, the hadassim, and the aravos—we see something special. Each has an element of unity. Let’s start with the esrog. Why, the Gemara asks, is it called “the fruit of a hadar tree”? Because it dwells on its tree from year to year. In other words, it goes through all the seasons of the year. Generally, fruits and vegetables have their seasons. Some fruits need summer; some need winter; some need one season, some another. But the esrog is a fruit whose growth depends specifically on all the seasons together. It has to go through the whole cycle of seasons; that is what enables it to grow. That’s something wonderful. It expresses the idea of unity. When each fruit needs a different season, that means one can thrive only in heat, another only in cold. But the esrog tolerates every kind of season—and not only tolerates them, but grows from them. That expresses a profound aspect of unity: bringing all the seasons together. And the same is true of the lulav. The lulav has many leaves, but what does halachah require of a lulav? It must be bound together: its leaflets, its leaves, must be joined and held close to one another. Once they separate, that becomes a halachic problem. A lulav must have all its leaves together, even though leaves naturally separate. Look at the palm branches used for s’chach: when their leaves separate, each goes in a different direction. But we use the lulav to emphasize that within separation there is unity; things join and become one. Then there is the hadas. Three leaves emerge from each point—three leaves in each set—but they must be in a straight line, not one higher and another lower. Three leaves emerge from the same place,

34:18 with each set of three touching the set of three above it, like a chain. In other words, once again it expresses connection. We take many separate things and unite them—unite the many. And the aravah: the Gemara says that aravos grow in fellowship. There are several explanations of this; one is that they grow in clusters. They grow together in groups, in fellowship—an expression of fellowship. So the point here is that, of the species we use, the Torah chose four in which oneness shines. That oneness is Hashem. “Hashem is One and His name is One.” This means that, here in creation, the Four Species reveal “Hashem is One and His name is One” within the reality of the world. And this is the outcome of Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah we asked and prayed, “Reign over the entire world in Your glory.” We asked and prayed, “Let every being know that You have made it”—to see Hashem in creation. And here we see it in the Four Species. When a Jew comes to Sukkos, the sukkah expresses the overarching unity that brings all Jews together in one place. That is the unity expressed by the sukkah. Then there are the Four Species, each of which expresses unity. Hashem’s oneness is revealed within the reality of creation. That is really the whole foundation of Sukkos, the deeper meaning of the festival we celebrate. And from this also comes the drawing of the water: “You shall draw water with joy from the springs of salvation.” After a Jew’s spiritual work during Elul and Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he has reached his deepest connection with Hashem. He doesn’t need wine to be happy; water makes him happy. Water symbolizes simplicity, something with no taste and no fragrance. A Jew may think that to connect with Hashem, he needs wine. He needs flavor. Wine symbolizes explanations, interpretations, things that give you

36:31 a sense of meaning and understanding. But when a Jew comes after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he is told: water. A simple act, a simple thing. Even in the simplest aspects of this connection, in every detail of daily life, I feel my connection with Hashem. And that is really the mitzvah of sukkah. Eat, drink—there is nothing unusual about it. Sit in the sukkah, eat, drink, and within the simple reality of everyday life you feel that you are a Jew and that you are connected with Hashem. That is this great joy. We bring it into every day of the year, so that throughout the year a Jew will feel this great joy: when I get up in the morning and say, “Modeh ani lefanecha,” I am a Jew. This wonderful joy in the very fact that I am a Jew—and in simple things too: in eating, in sleeping, and in business. “Know Him in all your ways”; “Let all your deeds be for the sake of Heaven.” In daily life, in the simplest things, a Jew should feel his deepest connection with Hashem. That is the great joy of Sukkos. May Hashem grant that we truly be able to rejoice and feel this joy throughout the entire year, to carry this joy forward. May it be a year of joy, a year of Geulah, a year in which we merit true joy, when Hashem’s oneness is revealed in the world, speedily in our days. Amen.