What Should A Simchas Bais Hashoaivah Look Like?

Hey Rabbi. >> Yes. >> How in your eyes Simchas Beis Hasho'eiva supposed to look like? >> The mission that describes in the time of the Beis Hamikdash that at nightfall they would light these tremendous lamps and all Yerushalayim was lit up from the light. And everybody would get together and everybody would play instruments and everybody would uh uh uh come to the Beis Hamikdash and uh the Gedolim and Anshei Ma'aseh would dance. And only they would dance. Everybody else would watch. And uh it it it was Can you imagine being in the Beis Hamikdash and you're watching the greatest people of our generation dancing before Kodosh Boruch Hu. Reb Yoelish Chaim Zanenfeld used to push himself when he was old and he had problems with his feet. He would push himself to dance at the Simchas Beis Hasho'eiva. And they said, "Rebbe, why are you pushing yourself so much?" He says, "Because it says that when Mashiach comes, only the Chassidim and Anshei Ma'aseh allowed to dance. Today we can all dance. When Mashiach comes, who knows if they'll let me dance. I might not be worthy. So today that we can dance, every Yid has the right to go and to celebrate." And I have to tell you this is one of the things you see by Simchas Torah also. People don't dance. Some people even stand outside cuz they don't feel like they're a part of it. And then comes to Simchas Beis Hasho'eiva, they're not dancing. Why? Cuz they don't feel like they're a part of it. They're not celebrating it. And we have to say to ourselves, the Simcha that we get, Sukkos is man Simchasenu, the happiness we get from being close to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, we're in the Sukkah. Tochechah Kan Ve'Ashkenah, Hashem is over us. We don't have a roof. We have a Kodesh Baruch Hu watching over us and caring for us. How could that not fill us with happiness? And happiness uh leads to rekkud. Rekkud is that dancing. I I heard a p'shat many years ago. I don't remember who it was from. I heard it from Reb Mechel Kaplan, but I don't remember who he said it from. He says, "On Yom Kippur, we do hishtakhavah, pishut yadayim v'raglayim. We spread ourselves out on the floor. And on Sukkos, we do the hishtakhavah standing up, and we dance with our arms and legs extended, just like we did the hishtakhavah, only now we're standing up, dancing before Hashem." That's what a Simchas Torah should be. Uh it's not about the eating. It's it's about the music and the dancing and and if you're at a real one, they say the 15 shalom aleichems, and it's just that celebration, a celebration of being a Yid on Sukkos, being close to Hashem.