Rabbi Reuven Lauffer - Sukkot: Chol Hamoed and Hoshana Rabbah

okay you know what here we're we're meandering our way towards the end of uh towards the end of the sukkah so let's let's work out what's going on the uh the way the way the way that the sukkot is is built you've got thursday and friday are going to be festival days and then the following thursday and friday are also going to be festival days and then you've got something in the middle called hamoid right hola mo ed is the way that it's word the word sound right hol is weekday and what festival and it's a kind of it's it's a kind of an in betwixt time it's not a festival day there are all kinds of things that we can't do on festival days that we can do during halloween so you could ride you can you can drive and you can buy things and you can use money yeah like your kids your family i i would say it's an abnormal time to spend uh yeah i mean it's normally normally there's a time it which is spent it's more family orientated that's for sure but with regards to the uh with regards to what you can and you can't do so you can you can you know you can use money you can buy things you can get on the train you can get on the bus you can take a taxi however there are certain things that don't get done during a column mode so some of this may not be very applicable to you right now but for example laundry as a rule is not done during collaborate money laundering is but not uh not regular laundry you can't watch that you can there's no laundry a period you're not really supposed to be doing laundry at all unless there's an overwhelming reason why you should so if you if you've got little kids at home who are forever getting themselves dirty then there's no other alternative you have to do laundry uh but otherwise you know if you can get your way through to the end of to the end of sukkot without having to do your laundry then that's the best way to do it um people try to avoid writing as well on holland again it's because it's a kind of a it's a time which is it's a little bit of a balance between regular and festival um again you know if you can do it that's great if you can't you can't you know many people for example here over here it's fine it's not such a big deal not to write during a color mode but if you're if you're back wherever you're coming from when you're working or you're in college for example you know that's what you you take you take notes if you don't take notes and you're going to fail your course so you have to you have to be able to write uh you got to work you can imagine you work you work in a bank and you tell them you tell each person who comes to the window that you know you're sorry but uh you can't write a thing right now so they can't have any money or they can't pay their bills it doesn't work like that right so we try we're trying not to we're trying not to write but you know it basically you can cook and you can you know you can like i said you can go places it's a it's a good time columbia somebody a good time to go visit people um obviously only go to visit people who would like you to be there i wouldn't i wouldn't bother trying to visit people who don't want to see you because that's not uh you know that's not going to add very much to their yonte's joy i imagine um i think i'm turning up your hair oh you can come to my house i always tell everybody you know you ring the doorbell knock on the door if we don't answer it doesn't mean we're not home the uh daveny we we did speak about darwin davening during holland mode is always a lot longer which means that uh we've got uh insider davening like i think i think we mentioned this but there's going to be shakharit and there's going to be halal and then there's going to be creature right there's going to be the hoshanahs we're going to walk around with the love in the air and then it's going to be busaf in the morning it's all it's all going to take a little bit of time um the other thing that you need to know actually is that uh that um the there's a special prayer called ya leviavo which is a prayer that's recited on festival days on special days it's recited which is the beginning of the month and you're going to recite that in every every ahmedabad that you dave and you're going to say because muslims is completely designated for the yantas but uh shahrukh minha and mairev if you've done all those things you're going to recite yelaviavo when you bench after you've eaten bread then you're going to recite yalaviovo as well that's just something to keep your eye out for something you need to try to remember what's that when's when's the day that everybody should go to the crossroad which is apparently amazing with cohen oh so this year it's going to be on sunday morning normally it's done on the first day of khala maid for the people from abroad which is the secondary column mode for the israelis but because that's shabbat this year so it's going to be on sunday morning sunday morning there is a there is a communal beer cat coin in anybody hear a coin last time we checked no one column sunday yeah and in the cartel there'll be there'll be tens and thousands of people it'll be packed absolutely packed and uh they everyone doesn't chakra is you know in their own minion but then when it comes to mustaf everybody dumbs mustaf together there's one communal mustaf and uh and there's beer cat caught in there there'll be hundreds of carne that will go up to bench everybody to bless everybody it's it's a real experience i mean you know give yourself time to get in there i don't know what time they're going to kick off exactly i'm sure rabbi geffen will have those kinds of details um but you know give yourself time to get in over there and be prepared to be squashed and pushed and trampled on um but that's all part of the experience you know it's uh something to look forward to right um okay let's let's move on we've got on tuesday night of of sukkot we've got the beginning of what's called what's called hoshanah rabbah now hoshanah rava is even though even though you may not know very much about it but hoshanah rubber is considered to be one of the holiest days of the year and in fact it's considered to be one of the days of the year according to their resale it's the day of the year when akhoris boca finalizes all of the judgments that have been made which means on rosh hashanah he writes them and and yom kippur he signs them and then when it comes to shana rabba that's it that's the final transmission of whatever whatever has been judged on each person the verdict it's going to be given over on hoshanah rabbah it's a very very important day it's also a day where we pray very very very very much we pray for rain the rainfall it's going to be for the coming year uh it's a very ver makes it very important over here in israel it's very important last year was a terrible year last winter was a terrible year was very dry yeah um what is rain matter on a smoothie here oh because rain first of all rain in general is something which is absolutely absolutely fundamental right because we need rain for drink and for drinking right we need rain for washing ourselves aside from that the rain the rain nurtures the ground which means even though it's a schmitty year and there's no planting going on but if there's another dry year then it's just going to make the following year when they have to come to try and plant things it's going to make it very very difficult right because the rain brings nutrients with it and it makes the it get you know it allows the earth to regenerate itself and we do rejuvenate and if we don't have rain it's a disaster over here and there have been like i said last year was a very bad year it started off in the most incredible way we had we hadn't had snow the most enormous amount of snow right at the beginning of the winter and everybody got all excited and that was really it for the rest of the winter we uh ended up without hardly any rain at all um which is not so good uh if you follow these things they have a there's a red line in the kinera the canary is like the you know like the the measuring rod of how much water there is in the country uh the kineret is uh even though down here in jerusalem we don't use the water from the kinetic we use water from a different source uh but the vast chunk of the country gets its water from the kineret and uh they've got all kinds of lines on the canary if it gets too low that's going to be disaster what they call the red line if it goes below the red line it's going to mess up the ecological you know the ecosystem of the kineric itself it's going to bring there's going to be too much mineral content it's going to be bad for the drinking water uh over here in israel they've got a very very innovative method you know when they were this red line uh of stopping the water from dropping below the red line over here because this is israel and we're very high-tech a very innovative country what they do is they simply lower the red line yes that is an israeli invention yeah and i just came up with one myself don't make buzz need to have natural oh yeah actually very good right makers also need to have us you know they need to have their water coming in from natural sources uh which means that that that would be you know a bit of a bit of a problem as well right um so i mean rain you know it's it's interesting with it within the within the within the words of the of the rabbis also with the words of prayers you know rain is life it brings it brings life it really does even even in a year when planting is not taking place about two seconds because he mentioned why they make switzerland said why is there mitzvah to make that that's a tongue twister uh i mean simply because yom kippur is such a holy day and going to the midfield is supposed to be a form of a spiritual cleansing experience um it's just it's something which is done right i mean it's certainly something which you if you have the opportunity i think you should do it uh if you don't if you don't do it it's not yeah it's not like you know i'm sure there are other things you're going to get zapped for before you get zapped for not going to the nick for an hour of yom kippur i don't know i mean you know if you'd like to tell us uh anyway so on wednesday night we're going to have this hoshanah rabbit what happens on our shana rabbit well there is a custom to stay up all night learning torah yeah so here it's interesting people don't know very much about hoshanah but there's accustomed to the custom to stay up all night learning toe which over here they're going to be all kinds of all kinds of shearing that are taking place and i of course have been given the the prime slot what's called prime time at three o'clock in the morning uh otherwise known as the graveyard shift um because even the people that are still in the room at the time are only there because they're too tired to get to their beds and nobody is listening which actually is pretty good because it means i can really say whatever i want what is there a dairy meal is there a no that's on shavuot we're in sukkah can we can't we can't we have a dairy oh you can do what you want of course are you kidding yeah yeah yeah can we just create more hug him with more dairy meals on more holidays yeah do i do i hear a certain i don't know that's like sounds like a certain desire perhaps for a national agenda ah okay i mean count me and sign me up i'm also i'm very keen on dairy stuff and uh i prefer actually i prefer it i shouldn't tell you this because you'll probably lose all respect that you might have for me but i prefer derry to meet actually um i'm sorry i shouldn't have said that huh no i don't know where you heard that from it's not i absolutely deny it it's not true at all it was taken with your milk go back to the video yeah the uh anyway so if you want to have a dairy meal on hashanah rabbit night you can with absolute pleasure um the embassy is like this there's going to be there's going to be shurim all night there's a custom to learn torah all night that's what people do and then they pray at the earliest possible moment now nowadays that's pretty late actually because the first time that you can actually begin reciting the shakhrit amidah is with the sunrise and the sun rises at the moment it's rising about 6 30 this is about as late as it gets over here because in a little while they'll put the clocks back and then everything will fall back by an hour um so in the meantime we got to keep going for a while get to get to you know dabling will start probably around quarter to six something like that um what they'll do over here is that uh the last year will finish at around four o'clock and then people will start getting ready to walk they'll walk to the cocktail now what's going to happen is dominique's going to be a little bit different on hashanah rubber by the time you get to shana rabbi you'll be all familiar with you know having walking around the bimmer once every morning and waving your lullaby that it's all done however on oshana rubber what happens is like this um first of all you have to buy in addition to your four species you have to buy what are called the hoshanahs which are a a little bunch of five willow leaves find out five below there's five willow branches um it's not it's a minimal amount of money don't worry about it cost you like five shekels it's not it's really not a big deal and that's going to be a focal part of what's going to take place what will happen is like this the beginning of dawning will be the same which means that you're dubbing you know the the chakra it will be the same and then they'll be hallel and then you'll make the bracha of your love and estrang and you'll after that they'll make that their hakka for the hackathon you go around seven times bless you there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of uh there's a lot of prayers that need to be recited and they you go around seven times everybody's really saying this stuff in unison together and then at the end of going around the bimmer seven times you then put down your lulav and your estrogen you pick up these five willow branches that you've got and you start reciting some extra prayers over there and at the end of the prayers you then take the willow branches and you beat them on the floor or on the person next to you uh five times next were you year when you said beat him on the person next to you yes yeah i mean you could certainly do somebody else as well it's not it's not doesn't have to be the person right next year the last day of cholamoid okay hold on we're going together let's just let's just finish up over here with with the hoshanah rava you're going to take your shadows your five willow branches you're going to bang them on the floor five times and then that's it that part of that part of the service is finished and they can take out the safety torah they're going to read and then there's going to be the mustaf regular mustaf what will happen is that the the khazan will probably be wearing a kettle which is a like a long white shirt and uh because you know it's interesting what will happen on hoshanah rabbi in the morning is that the tune that's used for the repetition of the amidah is normally going to be the tune that's used on rosh hashanah and yom kippur because it's got a it's got gotta i don't know how to you know because of the sanctity of the day it it's got a it's got a dimension which is almost like the days of or almost like rosh hashanah yom kippur right again it's not a yumt of day you can carry you can use money you can do whatever you would normally do but it's certainly a day with the most tremendous significance the most tremendous depth to it that's for sure um and then afterwards in the afternoon there's minha and then we're going to move into what's called schminitzer you