NEW!!! Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz: That's Perfect! The Sukkah and the Arba Minim

[Music] in now the transition between yum Kipper and suus regarding this period of time these five days that we know that Hashem gives us special Co to perform the special mitzah that we need to do finding a proper little vrog being able to build a beautiful Suka preparing the arum for the yto cooking inviting cleaning preparing everything that's involved to have a a beautiful Sim yam there is a curious Rama in that seems that seems to contradict something that he says in the very next Simon the previous Simon is in the laws of yum Kipper tough R and it says as follows it's a people who are really careful with MIT they go from I guess after Kish and they start to work on their SUV Mitzvah to go from one Mitzvah to the next which is an interesting formulation we don't find that very often and we could ask why is this unique to sukus and maybe any Mitzvah it's good to go from Mitzvah Mitzvah but here it's singled out by the Mahar who is the basic po thousand years ago um for for ashkenazic jury uh actually sorry he's in the more in the 16th and 17th century but he is one of the building blocks of the of the tradition of the ashaz and that's what he says and also it's uh quoted by the ha mamus in his commentary the on the ramom per base so this seems to be a message that you should try you should go as quickly as possible from Yumer to the MIT the Mitzvah of Yumer to the Mitzvah of su but then as we transition into H itself in the Rama writes the following gloss he says this you supposed to sit in the CLE for seven days why keep he takes the opinion but we the the other opinion that these are actually thees resemble the Clouds Of Glory and that you have to actually think about that when you enter the Suka that you are under some sort of special protection of Hashem in a group sense and will not allow us to be struck by the Heat and by the blazing sun um which can get pretty strong here in arel if you don't prepare then adds the's [Music] comment we should do the Mitzvah of the Suka right after Yumer the mitzvah because when a Mitzvah comes to your hand you shouldn't let it become words don't let those 18 minutes pass try to do it as quickly as possible quoting also the same H the Mahar what's going on over here why is the mar telling us two different messages and the is accepting both you told us already that you're supposed to go from Yumer tov Mitzvah to go from one Mitzvah to the next why do you have to repeat a different concept called the for a different alternative concept that we should not miss we should not be how shall I say be remiss and um bungle an opportunity to do a Mitzvah in a way which is pure and not so to SP supposed to be HCK being the reference to theara we got a little lazy we got a little hungry we got a little distracted whatever it might be we should focus and do the Mitzvah with ality why these two reminders for the same concept in order to explain this we have to go deeper into a fundamental uh observances of Suka itself we know that the Mitzvah we will do in the transition period between Yer and sukus are primarily two one is procuring the Dal minum lul vro and the other one is preparing the Suka MIT It's Curious to note that the veltan the the general um Spirit of these two mitzvos seem to be diametrically opposed to each other let me explain when it comes to picking an esto people will study Theos and spend hours and hours inspecting the top of a of an es to see whether its pitum has not been damaged or removed whether a black dot may appear on the first schlish the top third of the of the estrog that it's not split that it's not missing anything that it wasn't it wasn't pierced I've gone to um collect my own estrog game in a the year from nearby yesu and I can tell you that there are serious thorns grow on an esrog tree that actually do pierce the fruit so it's not a it's not an uncommon occurrence those those don't make it to the market but it's pretty pretty common so we look for every imperfection something something that's not something that's missing something that's not Hadar it's not beautiful we look for a beautiful GLE we want to have a beautiful shape in fact some look for a Gart what a Gart means is that they tied something around the fruit as it was growing and esog has a unique property that it can actually grow like if it's it's got a tight waisted belt it can actually grow around it so that it looks like it has a belt like AIC um garle that is worn to separate the upper and lower halves of the body fora which of course is you need to do but not necessarily using a garle the clothing is is adequate but um there's and we look at our loves we look at the top of the lulov we look for closed lulov we're terrified that there's the most simple split in the lul of itself and and we look for MIM we look for hadasim that are triple and that it's on one line and there's no distance between the two and the and the third one and we have to have a certain measure it's very very stressful if you care to find the right appropriate doll meaning with all the the krus and all of the HM you've got to work hard unless you have somebody you're paying to do it for you but that might be a little bit the easy way out here in Israel we tend to not go package deal like America and we buy each item separately each item separately getting the estro props first then the lul then closer to theim and the eror of the so they don't try out it's an incredible amount of detailed inspection and the rules are strict and the stakes are high because one dot or one accident could ruin your precious Mitzvah that you may have spend a profound amount of money on on the other hand we have the Suka the Suka is the exact diametric opposite in the spirit of its in we have many we have Cabos from all the way back from ancient times that we can use various devices to solve visible gaps for example if you put a board adjacent to a wall and it's seven long and the rest is a gaping hole so you have like a caddy Corner we have one leg wall and on the other side you have a seven board which is if you say a is let's say at most four inches 28 Ines is not a lot I'm not sure what that's in uh in U millimeters but and then you'll imagine that the rest of the Suka wall exists and we also have this concept called doen Akuma doen Akuma means if you if you have a portico which means the cement is a wall then the cement goes over the top a little bit you can actually up until four Amos use the cement Portico to create a Suka well with koser of course on the rest of it we call it a bent wall that's a that's a you know an elaborate how elaborate um head there that you don't needed actual exactly it can we can view it as bent over it's good enough and similarly if we have a gap in the in the as long as it's not too big right then we are entitled to consider it love anything within is not considered a gap but it is it's right there no we allow it how is it possible that the most strict Mitzvah that we perhaps perform all year lul vanra is in the same holiday the same yto as one of the most lenient mitzvos in Jewish literature and lore and the Su in fact there's even discussions where AER whether you can couple two of the fictional true realities such as the gap of love and also the Doan Akuma together in one Suka or in one place with n Suka that's how lenient we are that's how accommodating we are so it seems so how can you explain this dramatic dramatic contradiction and I think the answer is very simple we have to look to the from which these mitzvos emate by we say creates the MIT represents you the the lul is your spinal column it's your thinking if there's the littlest crack there if it's not unified if there's sefos doubts lack of cognition lack of understanding it's serious your lul has to be intact your thinking has to be intact you have to be straight thinker if your heart is your little of any small imperfection your heart you know could be fatal same same with the spinal column we can't take those risks and of course that dasos which represent our eyes the Ros and the lips what we see and what we say the love is what we think the esog is what we feel it's about us whereas the Suka is not about us as individuals at all it says seven days you sit in Suka right and everyone in CLA Israel is okay to sit the okay we do not Suka is the national grouping right everybody called Ezra Isel any citizen of Israel sits sits in the Suka we must it must be a collective Gathering Place ready ready and able in theory to house the entire Jewish people so here we have the answer when it comes to evaluating ourselves we can be very strict we can demand constant Improvement in performance one should never sit on their Laurels say I learned in Yeshiva till I was 22 or 23 years old and the rest of my life I'm just going to try to maintain some sort of level close to what I was as a beniva no that's not a vibrant certainly not in the spirit of Torah in any way shape or form which is it's a growing tree we have to constantly be improving ourselves and we should be considering our our performance every day in fact of teaches an incredible thing if you're willing to sit down with yourself for an hour or day or even a half an hour whatever you're going to call a period of time and evaluate yourself for that brief period of time saying how' I do today could could have been a little bit nicer to that lady in the supermarket I could have been more generous by giving a few extra coins to the person who was asking me for Sedaka I could have been a little more courteous I could have smiled I could have been more sensitive my words to my spouse to my children I could have represented Torah in a more dignified way as I went about my business I could have been perhaps doing my work with greater Integrity concentration and giving that's always there's always room for improvement every single year every single day and if you're going to be evaluating yourselves then guess what happens you're not evaluated above the bezin Shala closes its books on you and says there's somebody in charge of him it's his own and are evaluating him we do not need to judge him let me give you incredible analogy everybody knows that one of the biggest themes this year in the whole sad episode of the Gaza war is the intervention of the international criminal court in the Haag of course this is the August body of the righteous United Nations and European Union the sadim of the world as they consider themselves giving humble honest protecting the weak giving millions and millions of dollars $157 million Kamala Harris and her partner Biden well she she wrote the letter they gave to Lebanon because NE the poor but when there's a hurricane like we saw two massive hurricanes they gave a 100 or $200 million total to vast vast vast populations across several States how could you explain this and when held to task they are flustered they have no answers they fake and scramble and try to cover themselves I'll tell you the reason they give the money to Lebanon because they don't want Israel to control Lebanon they don't want CL Israel to defeat its enemies they think in their in their lack of comprehension or unwillingness to concede to the Mal Shay the truth which is terrorists are terrorists and habal hargo Hashim we have to be allowed to attack those that would attack us but why the world doesn't get it they just don't want to they have their own perceptions but when it so therefore when it comes to that Criminal Court they wanted to indict of course Israeli leaders but Israel answered an interesting thing they said you know what your court is a safety net the international criminal court is only relevant to countries that don't have their own legal system that's appropriate heaven knows that in Israel the power and authority of the Supreme Court is vast one great thing to report is that they did allow M minion in Tel Aviv unlike the mistake of last rashash Shana on this yamur there's a tikun there'll be a place designated in the city of the Tel Aviv against the wishes of many and the leadership of that city which is a and it's it's filled with shs and synagogues and people doing mitzvos and yet the acknowledgement of hashem's supreme rule on on in terms of observing the holy days of the Torah the Torah prescribes was battled for reasons that were relevant only to some Modern sensibilities which have questionable and dubious wor but this year the Court ruled properly yes there can be a place for that there is a place for that there must be a place for that and therefore since there is such a supreme court with so much power in Israel argues Israel you have no dis you have no jurisdiction over us Mr international criminal court in the ha you have no jurisdiction whatsoever because we have our own system this is exactly where is teaching if you have your own self evaluation every day with love and with care and with carefulness just like you check your W of an estrog but in a loving way in a stic way in a way which saying ah I want to do a little better AEM because I love you I want to do a little better for you because you deserve a better performance from me I want to do it because I just want to be a better Jew because I just want to give my heart over to hashm I just want to give my thoughts over to hhm I just want to speak in a way that you would want me to speak I want to look at the world in a Kosher Way in every sense of the world and that requires a lot of in introspection and self-evaluation but the good news is if Hashem sees you doing it in Shay the books are you on you are closed whereas when it comes to the Suka every single Jew when you want to bring all kinds of Jews together of every persuasion of every ilk of every level of Education of every ethnicity we have it all from the most observant to the least observant from the uh various ethnicities with all sorts of different customs and hug game levels of Education levels of of of dedication to the secular World academics and science you better make some accommodations you better be willing to say I'm going to look at my friends and I'm going to look at the glass half full and that's going to be okay you want to look at yourself and be unhappy if the glasses have that's your business and your Mitzvah that's the an but when you want to look at another Jew we're not judge and jury over anyone only Hashem is and who knows who Hashem values more the the the the secular Jew who went out to save another Jew on that faithful day of October 7th who sacrificed their life in defending our country since then so many so many have fallen how do we know what the status and ganaden of that person is with where we stand as of now and therefore the dichotomy between the the lul and the Suka is the difference between self-evaluation and looking at others so we bring the into the Suka and then we have balance is the bench in the Su as my father's zal taught me to do before you got to sh or before for you side H take your L into Thea then you have the full compliment the individual greatness and and and excellence and the tolerance and love of theor and that explains I believe the mahel the MIM represent the people of the L Type they're M they're looking for a doc they're looking for a little dot those people should exit The Kipper and go straight to a Mitzvah because they want to stay on the path and of Holiness as much as possible to the other part of clausell to the sukus Eden we say to them gently and lovingly we know there's a little humet going on I know that you're not trying to be as mtic as as as incredibly you could be but just remember don't let the humet take over we got through yamer now let's make sure that the momentum and the kabalas of yamer are celebrated on cus as well I hope that this year we will Master these two things the understanding that a little bit talking to Hashem and evaluating ourselves every day will protect us from harm and the other thing that will protect us from harm even perhaps more so is to look at every single Jew with a kind eye welcoming warm and unifying in this way we combine the little and the estrog the Suk us together and we should see Miracles this year this this Sim Torah rejoice in the vanquishment of in vanquishing evil not only in the outside world but a little bit in our hearts as well have a great young [Music] oh