Why Do We Shake the Lulav? Sukkot’s Secret to Lasting Joy - Rabbi Yehoshua Simons

Everybody knows the famous midrash that the four species represent four different types of Jew. [music] And the lulav having only good taste but not good smell represents the Jew that has only Torah and not mitzvot. So the obvious question is why do we shake the lulav right and not the date right the date is the aspect of that species that has the taste. The lulav doesn't. Okay. Secondly, if the lulaf only has Torah but not misvot and the hetro has both. And so why is it that when we say the blessing with Hashem's name, we say it on the lulav and not the rogue, the lulav represents the saddic. Okay, the good taste represents the [music] reward and the delight that he earns through his Torah study. Especially because a saddic is studying in order to do mitzvot. So of course the lulav is a Jew that has Torah and mitzvah. Otherwise he'd be a Russia, right? But what it's saying is that he studies Torah in order to perform its and that's the highest level. [music] So that's why we say the brah and the love. And why do we shake the love and not the rogue? Well during the process of Torah things can often be quite frustrating. We got pelp we got shaklvataria the battle for thehat right? Anybody who's got a good can explain [music] that during the toughest moments of learning, you aren't focused on the joy of learning. It's excruciating. You're too busy trying to win. In the end though, all the hard work pays off. You have the answer and [music] you've acquired some Torah. And that's when you experience the joy and the delight in it. About 20 years ago, I went to a dyium in [music] Israel when I was in yeshiva and no was there and this was in his later years and he had terrible Parkinson's disease and when it was his turn to speak [music] to the crowd. It was a massive crowd. He got up and he walked very slowly to the middle of the stage where the microphone was and it was painful to watch. He was really in agony and you could see how hard it was for him honestly. But he came, he really wanted to inspire [music] some Jews. And he didn't have it in him to give a big speech like everybody else. In fact, all he said was, "The Torah is so sweet." And then he went and sat down again. Sarah Agra, never in my life was I so moved nor understood this point [music] so well. That's the shaking of the lav, the pilpull, and the sara. So indeed there's no contradiction. We shake the lav right because that's the pillp the shaklavaria. We don't shake the date. The [music] date is the agra at the end the reward at the end. I want to ask another question about the love. The Mishna in suka says [music] we carry the love either six days or seven days. One of the seven days when the first day of is on Shabbat, that's when we carry it the full seven days. Otherwise, we carry it just six. That's because it's da and because it's daer it overrides Shabbat. However, due to a takana by Rabba that we might end up carrying [music] it to an expert who's going to show us how to shake it and say the brahas, we don't take it on the rest of the day. So if Shabbat falls on the second day, third day or whatever, then it doesn't override Shabbat cuz then it's only Rabana. We don't do that anymore. And the bat says that that's because we don't know how to calculate the months correctly and we're worried that we might actually get the first day of Yam wrong. So the obvious question is how can Amir Tana override a mitzvah dita? Could ask this about the chauffeur too of course but at least by the chauffear there's a real concern about another der being performed skilled labor on Shabbat. Well, it's just tilt. So it's hard to understand. Now, interestingly, the answer to this is very similar to what we just discussed about why we don't shake the date [music] as well as what we've been discussing in all the dash since rash shana this year. So, let's go back and go through the process and put it all together. On rashashana, we were judged. Now, the purpose of that judgment as we said [music] was from Hashem's point of view. He was deciding in general if the world was fulfilling its purpose and joy that he envisioned and also if his beloved children Israel were becoming who he hoped they would be and [music] connecting to him and giving him the relationship that was his joy in creation in specific he was deciding if the relationship with us was working or not and that's terrifying it's a very tough thing to go through sadikim always in rashashana terrified in the same way that a [music] child gets particularly terrified when he upsets his parents so much they don't even get angry. They actually reconsider whether having them was a good idea in the first place. Once we showed Hashem that we were still worth creating another year, we brought the joy back into the creation [music] in the world. His and ours, right? But still, the joy, this joy is suspended in the highest [music] heavens, way beyond reach. We can't feel it yet. Because even though we've proven that our relationship with Hashem [music] and each other is alive, we haven't proven that it's well. We've proven that we want to make amends which is truly a beautiful thing and that already brings the joy back. That is an essential connection restored. But we still needed to make the amends [music] to bring down the walls that separated us. So we afflicted ourselves in Yamipur and engaged in heartfelt sha. We apologized and corrected the damage in our relationship and we did so through a huge amount of hard work and effort. An entire day of affliction. Still, as we said in my last shure on Hazenu, it's done now, right? We got through it. We made it. It may have seemed impossible at the time and it was very, very difficult, but that effort that we put in when it's over and it's all to our credit, we made it. That becomes the joy, right? It transforms into the joy itself. That's why Kapoor is described by Raban Shiman Bengamiel as the most joyous day of the year. He says that this is the day that we got the second l and thus we did to shuva for the first time. And as we said to shuva doesn't just repair the relationship, it brings it to an infinitely higher [music] plane than ever before. And therefore it's an immense joy above and on earth. Hashem's joy [music] in creation itself. So here we are. We now have brought this joy back into the world. Now just like with the lulav when we said that during the actual process of learning it's hard to feel the joy. The joy existed in the shama but doesn't get felt in the girth until we reach the [music] terret. The same is true of yamipur. In the thick of it, the joy was there but it was suspended [music] and it needed to be brought down through the tusha until at the end when it's over there is a sudden burst of joy of accomplishment. But above all, knowing [music] that we're clean and everything is resolved and we can shine brightly again in our relationships with our beloveds, the greatest gift that we have in the world, somebody else without the interruption of things, just real intimacy. So this is the perfect time to build the suka. The joy is now tangible in the air. And this is exactly what the suka represents. As my children learned, right, it's like a hug from Hashem. We surround ourselves in his mitzvah. And there's no difference between that and hug. By the way, as Adarbi said, and I mentioned it before, when we hug a person, it's not their body that we're hugging, right? Literally, it is. But that's not what we want. We're trying to hug the vitality, their soul. But we can't hug that, right? You can't hug a soul. So, we hug the body. And because the body is subservient and connected to the soul, [music] it's the same thing. So too, when we surround ourselves with Hashem's mitzvah of suka, we are feeling Hashem's embrace because the mitzvah truly connects to Hashem. The thing is [music] the joy is still in the air. It surrounds us. It's palpable. But in that state, it can dissipate. So what we need to do is we need to absorb it and integrate it into the specifics and let it have a positive lasting effect on every aspect of our soul. And that's why we take the lav. By shaking the lav, we take the surrounding joy and infuse it into our whole life into our mind for our Torah learning into our heart for our mitzvah observant into our mouths for our relationships for our tila for our eating everything. We want the power of lulaf. It captures this amazing light, [music] this amazing aura that fills the world and it draws it into our very soul to be most tangibly felt and integrated and transform us in a lasting way. So this the cabalist say is where the takana of the lav was acceptable. Shabbat has its own kadusha and it does what the lulav does itself maybe even in a loftier way. That's also where we don't put a fill in on Shabbat, right? Shabbat also takes light and internalizes [music] it. For example, during the week we eat, pack lunches, right? And that's how we get our sustenance. [music] But on Shabbat, the entire table is spread out. It's set. We [music] can come and partake of the food in peace and tranquility. No effort required. We experience and benefit [music] from its own egg automatically. Therefore, we don't need to shake through the love. Technically speaking, if it's Shabbat and thus the takana stands. Now, you may ask then why did we need to shake the love in the times of the behamed? That's because in those days when the shina rested among us, there were levels even beyond the joy that we've been discussing. Joys that we haven't seen since [music] then as it says in the end. So while Shabbat would help us internalize these levels that we're talking about, there were even more levels too back then. And the Lul would help with those. So that's why back then we even took the Lulov in the Medina, not just in the [music] Bahamash itself. May we all have a joyful sat. Now remember this joy we're talking about is so great. It's so perfect. It's so good that it can even excite Hashem and bring him and give him a purpose in creation. What is the joy? is the joy of having someone else. Not things, not materialism, but having someone else, having a relationship, having a holy good relationship with someone else, with Israel, with Hashem. [music] The true joy in this though, as we have just said, has been obscured for the longest time. It's been thousands of years since we felt it, but in the background, it has been growing exponentially. [music] So this year may we be z to finally bring that joy down in its entirety [music] to go with the joy that we built through yamipur and rashashana. May we do so especially through our avoda of sukkot.