איסרו חג במקדש | הרב אליהו ובר

"Bind the holiday," Holiday, how do you bind the holiday? The Gemara says one must bind the holiday, and by doing so, we continue a bit after the holiday the essence of the day. Indeed, a large part of the concept of Isru Chag, which the Sages mention regarding eating and drinking, is that anyone who offered a peace offering yesterday, it is eaten over two days and one night; so they say the peace offerings of the holiday are still eaten today, so today there is a connection to the holiday. But specifically in a year like this where it falls on Sunday, it is less applicable; because if Shemini Atzeret was yesterday on Shabbat, they could not offer the peace offerings, so we don't have much of a memento left from the holiday. However, it is already explained in the Mishna that today is the day the Priests organize and clean the Temple courtyard. We still have, we remain bound internally to the holiday, and that is Isru Chag. And in exactly 200 days, exactly 200 days, we are already returning here to offer the Passover sacrifice. It's a leap year, so there will be six months of 30 days, that's 180, plus the month of Tevet and the month of Adar which are short, so it comes to 118, plus the days remaining until the end of the month of Tishrei, and the days at the beginning of Nisan. In total, we have 200 days. In 200 more days, the entire People of Israel return here, and there is one thing that does not stop during these 200 days, one thing that is never stopped: the daily offering and the incense, that is something that never stops. So, there are the pilgrims; everyone came today, everyone is packing up, returning to their homes. By the way, whoever knows, the reason we don't say "Give dew and rain for a blessing" until the 7th of Cheshvan. After the destruction, the Ran says it is because even after the destruction, people continued to go on pilgrimage. Meaning, because there are people who ascend to the Temple Mount, therefore, everyone does not say "Give dew and rain." All of the People of Israel are considerate of those ascending to the Temple Mount; perhaps you didn't know, but for two weeks everyone is considerate of those ascending the Mount. So, it is truly an important thing to be a bit more considerate of those pilgrims than we are today. So, not just three words in a prayer, but more than that. In any case, in 200 days we are already preparing for the next holiday, arriving at the Festival of Matzot. Now we are beginning winter. "Winter" sounds...Winter is something boring, that's not us. We are starting, returning to routine; it is part of creation and that is the goal. We just had everything. We finished the year three weeks ago, and now we are starting the year in the middle of these three weeks of holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Ten Days of Repentance, Yom Kippur, a few days in between, and Sukkot. And everything is now, we are starting the year, the start of the year is our preparation for the service of God. We all strive to take the abundance we received from the recent holidays, these three weeks, all these things, everything, everything, we take it all with us, and it can truly be said that this is also the concept of " make me a small feast." The principle was that we had three weeks of all sorts of things, commandments, then comes a day with no commandments, there are additional offerings, but it doesn't have such special commandments. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: Yes, I want this little meal, so you know that I love you. Even though you are going, leaving now, moving away, everyone returning home–200 days until everyone returns home, another 200 days until the Passover offering, so–ah Moving away, returning. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: But know this, throughout this entire period I love you, I want you with Me, I commune with you. So throughout this entire period, whoever can–yes, you don't have to stop on foot, you don't have to come only on foot. It was Chol HaMoed, one day where there were 2,500 people, 2,500 people. I heard that there were, there were four people who got stuck on the roads and in traffic, and not everyone managed to enter that day, there was a lot of congestion that day. So it is possible–true, it is really very important to come on the holiday –but you can also come at the end of Tishrei, the month of Cheshvan; the mount is also open. There is even some day off in the middle of Cheshvan, they told me something, there are elections, right? Something like that, so there is some day, one day off. So it is possible, there is, there are many opportunities to come. And may the Holy One, blessed be He, bless us that all of Israel will truly have a healthy and complete winter, that we will all merit to come here, to prostrate ourselves, to rejoice before the Almighty, to commune with the Holy One, blessed be He. That we may merit this winter to already restore the daily service here to its place, and on the festival of Matzot, in another 200 days, all of Israel will come with the sheep and goats to offer the Passover sacrifice. Amen. May it be His will.