Sukkot: The Secret Behind Jewish Resilience - Rabbi Hillel Eisenberg

[music] >> Succos as we know is a celebration of the Jewish people's time in the desert and the Ananei Hakavod, these miraculous clouds that protected [music] us there. But ever wonder why that whole desert part of our story had to happen in the first place? True, Hashem did miraculous things for us in the desert. He gave us water from a rock and food from the sky and he surrounded us with clouds, but still why were we there in the first place? Why not take us straight out of Mitzrayim directly into Eretz Yisrael? Why make us go through the desert and give us the Torah there of all places? [music] Why not give it the Torah in Eretz Yisrael on Har Sinai, the future site of the Beit Hamikdash? Wouldn't that make a lot more sense? And here's what makes it even more confusing. The majority of our desert stay wasn't part of the original plan. It was a punishment. We were supposed [music] to spend a few weeks passing through and then head straight into the land and start building our lives. But then came the Chet HaMeraglim and suddenly we're stuck. Our entire journey screeches to a stop. 40 years of wandering [music] in circles, 40 years of funerals, 40 years of Tisha B'Av after Tisha B'Av where tens of thousands of Jews died in the desert. So, what exactly are we celebrating? Yeah, Hashem protected us with the clouds, the Ananei Hakavod, but it's not like we wanted to be there. The whole thing was a punishment. It was b'di'avad. What are we celebrating exactly? That Hashem protected us with miraculous clouds? We didn't want to be there with those clouds. We wanted to be in Eretz Yisrael living in normal homes, living normal lives. The whole thing was a massive punishment. So, how does that become a Yom Tov? Let me tell you a story. Not long ago, I took my family to the southern part of Thailand, to a place called Krabi. Beautiful, stunning, otherworldly [music] part of the world. And one of the days we were there, we took a ferry to a remote island [music] called Phi Phi. From there, we wanted to go even further to even smaller, more secluded island. So, we hired a guy to take us in this tiny [music] boat. It was me, my wife, our 4-year-old, our 3-month-old, and some cousins with their [music] young kids. And at first, the ride was peaceful, smooth sailing, beautiful Indian Ocean water. But then, almost out of nowhere, a massive black cloud started hovering over the island we were headed to. [music] And then it started raining. And then it started pouring. And remember, we've got newborns on this little boat. The waves are getting huge, the boat's rocking like crazy. Oh, and by the way, there are sharks in the ocean. We saw them. We start screaming at the guy to turn around, but he doesn't even flinch. He thinks we're telling [music] him to keep going further. He's literally steering the boat with his foot, smoking a cigarette like it's a calm summer day, and we're huddled together saying Shema under a flimsy tarp, drenched. We're trying to communicate, but he's just not getting it. Finally, after what felt like tsunami-level waves, he realizes that we want to turn around. So, he turns back, we make it back to the main island, and we run through the rain to safety. Now, here's the question. Why was he so calm while we were losing it? What made us shiver in fear and he's smoking a cigarette like he's taking a calm stroll in a park? The answer is that this was normal for him. He was born into this life. He's done this 10,000 times before. He knows every inch of that part of the ocean because that's where he was born. Him steering a boat in the rain is like us driving a car in the rain. It's no big deal because that's the world he was born into, [music] and that's exactly what the desert was for us. We weren't just passing through it, [music] we were being born into it. That's where we got the Torah, and that wasn't random. The Torah could have been given in the Beit Hamikdash, in the Kodesh Hakodashim, in the holiest place on Earth, but it wasn't. Instead, it was given on a nameless mountain in the middle of nowhere, near Egypt, in a desert. That's not a mistake. Hashem was making a statement. The Torah isn't just for perfect days. It's not just for when you had the perfect cup of coffee and everything's [music] going great. The Torah specifically wasn't given in Eretz Yisrael, on a perfectly holy place, in the holiest land on Earth. That was to tell us that the Torah is for moments, for every moment, for the messy moments, for the hard moments, the tired, stressed, stuck in traffic moments. Hashem knew we'd be in exile. He knew we'd be on the run. He knew we'd be learning Daf Yomi on subways and saying Tehillim in waiting rooms and whispering Shema on airplanes. So, he gave us the Torah in a desert, so we'd be battle-tested, so we'd know how to carry it throughout rough terrain and any terrain that history throws at us. So, true, most of our desert time was the result of a sin. It was a punishment. We should have gone straight into Eretz Yisrael. But the desert made us who we are, a people who can rise from failure, a people who keep singing Hashem's song even when our notes are sometimes a little off-key, a people who are loved by Hashem not because we're perfect, but because we keep showing up even when we're not perfect. The Jewish people survive any type of [music] turbulent weather because we've navigated these waves before. We were born [music] in a desert. There's no challenge we haven't faced. There's no villain we haven't stared down. Sukkot isn't a celebration [music] of the punishment. It's a celebration of the relationship, that even after our mistakes, Hashem still loves us, still believes in us, still protects us. And that's what gives us the strength to keep going, [music] to keep holding Hashem's torch no matter what, no matter when, no matter where.