Sukkos and Rectifying Sins of an Intimate Nature

neil armstrong used to go around telling people really unfunny jokes about the moon and when they wouldn't laugh he would say well i guess you had to have been there that's not true that's just a joke but you know you get it because neil armstrong was on the moon no one else is on the moon i guess buzz aldrin was on the moon but anyways the point is when people you know they say i guess you had to have been there okay so apropos too i guess you had to have been there uh the mishna in sukkah says about the simchas basa shoeva that is the special festival of the water drawing that used to happen in the base of ignis in the holy temple in the holy city of yerushalayim somebody who never beheld who never experienced the festival of the water drawing of has never seen joy in all of his days in other words whatever joy you have seen if you haven't been present and for the past 2000 years indeed nobody has been present because it hasn't existed since the temple was destroyed but if you haven't been present for the festival of the water drawing that used to take place in the holy temple you've never seen joy because the joy in that on that occasion was so exceptional so let's talk a little bit about technically what it was historically and also let's try to understand a little bit about the unique joy that makes it such an unparalleled and incomparable joy technically speaking um we'll make it very very brief in the basement in the holy temple there were carbonic sacrificial offerings which were animal offerings by and large there were also meal offerings made from flour uh and then accompanying these offerings were various libations libations means drink offerings they would pour wine they're made from wine now on sukis on the festival of circus there was a special thing called nisa khamayim which was the water libation instead of pouring only wine on the altar in addition to the wine they would also pour water on the altar and when they would draw the water for the for that purpose they would draw it from a spring in yerushalayim near the near the holy temple and that drawing of the water was celebrated with an all-night festival of singing and dancing and they used to have these torches up in the air built up on on very long very tall uh like uh poles and uh they would burn oil oil burning torches and they would light up the whole city so it would be like daylight all night by the way just parenthetically when i when i whenever i learned this i think about growing up in chicago they used to have the uh you know wrigley field the friendly confines right so there was this big there was a strong movement no lights in wrigley field i think this was back in the 80s when i was a kid and there was a very strong push no light in wrigley field because they didn't want night games in wrigley field because the lights from a baseball stadium are very very bright right they make it like like it's daylight so la havdel i guess if you could picture lights from a stadium lights that make it like you know like a baseball field where it looks like it's daytime even though it's the middle of the night lahavdil that's what it would be like in yerushalayim in the times of base uh summercast bay says these massively bright torches uh of oil burning uh flames up in the air just making it as bright as day now interestingly we're told in the in the mishnah what these torches were made of they burned oil but the the wicks the giant wicks were made from the used up or discarded big day kahuna the clothing that the kahanam that the priests wore in the basement in the holy temple um but specifically you know there were four articles of clothing that the kohanim would wear there was the hat which is called migbas and that the sinus which is like a shirt or a tunic the av nate which is the belt and then there's the mikhna which are like shorts they go uh they're like an undergarment under the shirt they're the one on the legs so the wicks for these lamps were specifically made from two out of those four garments from the same and from the uh the avenate the shorts and and the belt that's what the mishna says um and it's interesting because there's another mishna that discusses the wicks for the minoda and there it says it was just made generally from any of the old discarded clothing of the of the kehanim any of the four garments but when it came to the torches for sim case-based shower then it was specifically the shorts and the belts and and that's what we want to understand i know it sounds like a very technical question but what's up with that why were the wicks of these giant massive uh oil torches made specifically from these two articles of clothing the the belts and the shorts of the uh of the uh big day kohona and uh in order to understand this i want to share with you a story the story is about someone that the gemada says is one of the greatest balaychova of our time meaning the time contemporary or contemporaneous to uh to the gemada now interestingly the gemara doesn't say his story it just says uh that he was a great balshova great penitent bass and his name is nasin but it doesn't say what he does what he did interestingly there's a siddiq work from the son of the balatanya the the rabbi called which is all about teshuva and there the rabbit mentions that it also mentions this no sin in fact he mentions him in the same line with another famous baal shiva rabbi allah famous story from the gomaryana vedazora so the mithla rabbit there says you know the great penitents like allah and like but again he doesn't say what he did where does it say what would happen did to be considered one of the great bali children so there's a there's a cipher called seifer i say a story a book of stories and there it tells the the tale it says that once and and before i begin to tell the story i'm just gonna i'm gonna say like this generally speaking i i try to make sure that everything that i teach should be for all audiences and and i believe that this is for all audiences however i'm telling you before i begin obviously i'm going to speak you know sensitively and i'm going to speak as cleanly as possible but if you have uh any reason why you'd be you or someone else who's watching if you feel that you uh if you're unsure you want to hear material that you you're afraid might be a little bit uh risque or over the line i'm just i'm i'm warning you now but what i'm about to tell you this is not something uh you know god forbid is not from non-jewish sources this is from our from ghazal okay but uh i am i'm this is something that's a little bit more earthy uh a little bit more frank about the human condition and about some of some of the struggles that that people have so so with that with that warning it says that rabbi akiva once was walking with his talmidam and he saw someone ride by on a horse rabbit kiva asked to tell me them who is that riding behind the horse so they tell me them said that guy he's called uh and this is what the seifer isafella says that that guy is called nassendreas you can translate it on your own but i i in very you euphemistic terms in in in america in in 2020 you might say um you know nelson the womanizer okay i don't think that's such a off-color term um i mean it's an off-color thing to be but the term is not such a terrible term okay like i said i'm trying to be as uh self-censored as possible needless to say he didn't earn that nickname or that title by living a very scrupulous life he um he was an immoral person he was known for it but said to the to the students i see a halo i see a glow emitting from his head tell him to come speak to me i want to i want to meet him so a meeting was arranged and rebecchiva said to this nassen why are you glowing see they called him nassendrea zoiness rabekiva called him nassen tsutisa tutsisa means the one who's emanating a glow he says you know he tried to play it you know low uh low key he says oh i don't know barbecue said please you have to tell me i see that you're special what did you do special so rebnossen says okay i'll tell you and he tells her to be given his story the story is that agnostan had a very very strong itsahara and particularly in a particular area as you all understand what i'm saying here and he always indulged in that area he never didn't indulge and it came one particular time where he became obsessed with one particular woman a woman named hannah who was a married woman and he became obsessed he decided he has to have this woman hannah and he became sick he became deathly ill and the doctor said that the only way to revive him is if he indulges his lust so obviously the the rabbanim the the rabbis said no nothing doing but um so this uh ramnasan he was languishing away and uh in the meantime this uh this hana her husband was very poor and he was thrown in debtor's prison which in those days was something like a dungeon in fact they didn't even feed the prisoners she would spin wool and then she would sell the wool and with the money she made she would buy bread and bring it to the prison because if she wouldn't bring the the bread to the prison then her husband would starve to death in prison she would do this every single day she was a very loyal wife and one day her husband couldn't take it anymore and he said to her look this nussen he's a very very wealthy man go to him and ask him for a loan to pay off my debt so i can get out of prison so this condo she was a very virtuous woman and she was taken aback she said to her husband how can you send me to this man don't you know that he is languishing away because he's obsessed with me now i should go and ask him for a loan and she was very upset with her husband even suggesting such a thing and she stormed off and she didn't visit him for a few days but after a few days she forgave him she came back she brought him food and uh he said it again he said i'm gonna die in here you have to get me out of here go to the he's a rich man ask him for a loan to pay off my debt and release me and and and again she was very upset but he begged her so uh she divent hashem she's going to go to this nasa and she's going to ask for the loan and she dive and she asked hashem please protect me that nothing should happen through me or to me that would be sinful so she goes to this nelson and she says i need money for my husband he says how much whatever you want she named the number whatever they owed he told the the attendants in his house give her the money right away he gave her the money and he says to her now i gave you what you want give me what i want and she says to him look as you know you're powerful and i am i have no power here in this the situation and i can't stop you from doing whatever you want but i just want to tell you one thing you have a choice right now you have a choice between doing something that will give you reward for eternity or something that will have a payoff for a moment so you can choose right now between something that's everlasting and something that is gone in a moment and for some reason whatever it was this nassen who had indulged his lusts all of his days all of his life these words of this woman khanna this virtuous woman somehow that that clicked for him and he was he realized how pitiful his situation was how lowly his situation was and at that moment he cried out and he begged hashem for mercy he said hashem please help me to do teshuva and his cries clearly were heard from on high and not only did he resist his temptation for this particular woman but at that moment he became transformed and he walked away from his previous life of immorality and this is the story that he told rabbi akiva kiva heard the story he says now it makes perfect sense to me why you have a halo while you're glowing that's the story you know there are certain topics that i mean i i was saying before i'm trying to be careful how i talk about this and and there's a reason for that because you know not only is it something that polite people don't speak about these things explicitly but there's another reason for it spiritually there are different approaches how to deal with these uh temptations with this side of human nature but the approach i'll i will say this that the particular approach my tradition what i've been handed down my messiah is that we focus on oil we focus on light we focus on positivity and ase and uh if you focus on that then it takes care of the sumira takes care of the negativity and so we we don't give a lot of thought or focus or attention to talking talking about these things not because it's shameful and therefore it's a secret and we're pretending it doesn't exist of course it exists since the hat sadas it exists since the hat and and and alderman cava gained self-consciousness which means when they gained das what did it mean it means that they became aware of themselves in a particular way which they became ashamed of their nakedness they became self-conscious in a particular way everyone understands what i mean by that they identified a certain desire within themselves ever since that day that has become part of the human condition so it's not like this shameful secret thing that we pretend doesn't exist or what you know we're sweeping it under the carpet we know that it exists and we know that everyone grapples with it and that's why anjan kippur the creo is about the arroyos why why is this korea saturday why is the torah reading on the holiest day of the year about forbidden illicit intimate relationships why the gemara says because it's something that people struggle with whether in actuality or whether you know in thought but the point is it's a struggle of course it's that's the human condition so it's not that we don't we don't think it exists we know it exists but you know we try to focus on positive at the same time something has to be acknowledged that if somebody was nik and they have a relationship to these things and even if they've fallen very low and they have a deep relationship with these things they should know that not only does teshuva work and they can come back from it but when they do come back from it the potential to return is limitless to the extent that someone who fell as low as nausea zionists can become nauseous and with the halo with the angelic glow now maybe only arab akiva can see it okay maybe the tal even the tongue of rabbi apparently didn't see it because they called him by his old name but can see it and he didn't see a pervert a disgusting person a low life a reject he didn't even see somebody who had oh you know he's okay now but you know don't get too close to him because you know what he used to be involved in no when rabbi akiva saw the abnorm he saw someone with an angelic glow because teshuva has that power and as low as he fell that's how high he rose after he did teshuva and this is what schlemmer malek refers to king solomon the wisest of all men when he says that there's a yes an advantage of light that comes from darkness not just the advantage when you compare light to darkness but the advantage that comes from light that was transformed out of darkness when your lowest spiritual failures become transformed because you don't want to be cut off from hashem anymore and now your failings become the impetus to become all the more sensitive and vigilant than there's a transformation so let's go back to our original question about the simchas basis why specifically these two garments the belt and the shorts it's very interesting what these garments correspond to what they symbolize the the gamoran's vacuum and base tells us that are supposed to be the atone for transgressions of an intimate nature and where do we see that from the gemara says because the pasta itself the verse in toyota that tells us about this article of clothing says that it goes on the flesh of one's nakedness of the airva so the mikhnasayam come to a tone for this particular struggle those are the shorts that go on that part of the body so to the avnic the belt the belt also is connected to this idea in fact in shochon when it talks about in the code of jewish law the idea of putting on a belt in order to daven one of the ideas is that it separates the heart from the airva there's a concept there of separating those two parts of of the body the heart from the from the reproductive organs when one doveins so the belt is very much connected also to this idea of taming mastering having having control over those passions so it's those two particular garments which correspond to those two parts of our body and our human nature and and and our challenges why were they why were they used as wicks to light up the whole yura shalom and sukis because sukis is a continuation of and the revelation of rosh hashanah nym kippur tikku bahadur schaefer the castle means covering that means that on rosh hashanah the moon is covered because it's the new moon but it also means that the spiritual energy is hidden that's why it's rosh hashanah and yom kippur are solemn days very serious days but whatever happens rosh hashanah in kipper in a serious way in a concealed way comes out into revelation in a happy way on success so basically the atonement that we experienced on yom kippur in a serious way becomes revealed on sukis what are we saying we're saying that if somebody needed yem kippur to come and clean the slate because he has struggles in that particular area of life that corresponds to the messiah and the avnet and everyone has struggles in this area whether it's in whether it's whether it's it's where you look everyone struggles on some level we don't have to go explicitly again like i said and it's not because we're sweeping it under the car pretending it doesn't exist because we we don't focus on it because we don't feed it at the same time we admit that yes this is a universal struggle so those who experienced a cleansing onion kipper in the area that corresponds in our life to the belt and the shorts which is all of us let's be frank and sukkis and sukis we can celebrate that cleansing specifically in that area of our lives and those articles of clothing are then turned into the torches that burn and light up the entire judicial line so that the night is bright like day very poetic stirring symbolism that the very thing the very part of my my life with my spiritual struggle that i felt was the most shameful the lowest part is now fuel for the fire to make lamps that light up the holy city of yudushalayam so that night shines like they very very poetic and what did they sing by the way what did they sing at the simchas basa shoeva the mother tells us it's much better never to sin of course that's plan a however umi but if he did sin yahshua and he will be forgiven that is the joy of symbolism that's what it means if you never saw the joy of simca you never saw joy if you never saw the transformation of the struggle with these this particular part of human nature this deep dark dark struggle that goes all the way back to the khattai zadasta the original sin of aldermen cava if you never saw the joy of someone who was able to climb out of that and transform that you never saw joy if you never saw how someone like no sindraya zainus could become nothing to say with the halo who rabbi akiva sees is shining like like an angel you never saw joy if you never saw an addict in recovery you never saw joy if you never saw doesn't have to be an extreme case if you never saw somebody who is nik and he not only put it in his past but having that negative experience that that's behind him now becomes this impetus to push him higher to higher levels of sensitivity that's a fuel for a flame that can light up the night like day so it's nothing to hide from it's nothing to pretend doesn't exist to the contrary this is the greatest spiritual attainment this transformation of the avnet and everything they represent when they become the fuel to make night shine like day [Music] my [Music] my [Music] you my