Sukkot and the Quality of Life

Never-ending ambitions keep the world spinning hysterically. We live and strive for attainments in the future, while the achievements and successes of the past go by the wayside, forgotten.

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to enjoy a college diploma, a friend, a business success, your spouse or even your child?

Try it. Try spending some time just enjoying what you have. Instead of looking for things to do, just sit and appreciate.

You tried it? Good! How long did it last – five minutes, 15 maybe?

It’s difficult. And the more we strive for future goals, the harder it gets to appreciate past successes. Of course, goals are great and we should always strive higher. But do we sufficiently appreciate what we’ve already achieved?

We attain one goal, and then we want more and more. It doesn’t stop even when we’ve achieved our biggest dream. It only stops … when we say “stop!”

Sukkot is the holiday when we say “stop.” Sukkot is the “happiness” holiday – which is really the “appreciation” holiday. It is the essence of everything we are striving for: meaning, fulfillment, purpose, happiness.

Status Simple

"Pinchas… son of Aaron, the Kohen" (25:11)

The Guardian newspaper in England has just run a preview of a bio-pic of the life of Princess Diana. With all its razzle-dazzle, Hollywood could not have outglitzed this movie.

I remember well the outpouring of grief when she died. That people should mourn a life cut off in its prime is understandable. What was remarkable, however, was the spectacle of a world rending its clothes and beating its breast at the demise of a self-confessed adulteress. Youth, beauty and royalty apparently gilds marital treachery and turns it into the stuff of true life romance.

This singular flood of tears, however, was not a mere aberration of public sense and sensibility. From time immemorial there has existed such a double standard in society. Throughout history, kings have exercised what the French in their exquisitely delicate manner call the droit de seigneur – "the right of the master."This was the accepted custom of the ruler to claim the first night of a girl’s marriage.

In this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas puts an end to a plague which has killed 24,000. The cause of this plague was an orgy of immorality with the women of Midian and Moav. Instead of applauding his action, however, the people accused him of murder. It’s interesting that the accusation leveled at him is that ‘this grandson of someone who fattened calves to be calves to be sacrificed to idols’ had the gall to kill a prince of Israel. If you think about it, what does the social status of Pinchas have to do with whether his actions were justified or not?

Adultery amongst the hoi-poloi is as gilded as romance amongst the glitterati. Status makes everything permissible.

Street Heater

"Miriam and Aharon spoke against Moshe regarding the Cushite woman that he had married." (12:1)

Imagine a Native American who has spent all his life on the reserve in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, finding himself on the East Side of New York City around 29th and Lex. He walks down the street and stops. His attention is riveted on a nearby window. Straddling the window is a rectangular metal box about three feet long by eighteen inches high. It blasts out hot air, chugging away in a relentless mechanical symphony. He lifts his eyes. Brownstone apartments rear upwards to the sky. And in each and every window he sees the same metal boxes. Hundreds of them. All are belching out hot air into the humid Manhattan sky.

He thinks to himself, "These white men must sure love the heat. It must be 102° and they still put these contraptions in their windows to heat the street!"

Sometimes an air conditioner can look like a street heater.

When Miriam found out that Moshe had separated from his wife, she thought that he had become conceited. She thought that Moshe viewed himself as being so close to G-d that he had risen beyond a normal marital relationship. She thought that this self-imposed monasticism was a product of an inflated ego. Of course, what would be considered conceit in Moshe would to us appear humility beyond anything we have ever seen or experienced. We have no parameters to equate our concepts of conceit and humility to Moshe. But, on that exalted level, Miriam thought that Moshe had succumbed to pride.

But how could Miriam have thought that Moshe was acting out of pride? The Torah itself calls Moshe the "humblest of all men." Surely Miriam knew the Torah’s evaluation of Moshe. How could Miriam have even suspected his motives?

Moshe may have been the humblest of all men, but he wasn’t a shlepper. Being humble doesn’t mean walking around with a hunched back and a miserable look on your face. Moshe knew that he was the king. But he also knew that compared to G-d, he was nothing. His humility lay in understanding, like no man before or since, exactly how small he was compared to G-d. It was because Moshe worked on himself to this point that G-d concretized his awareness by speaking to him ‘face to face.’ Then Moshe’s humility became visceral. He could ‘see’ how small he was.

Humility is not something you can judge from the outside. Sometimes someone may seem very humble, but inside they are watching everyone watching them being humble. They are starring in their own mental movie called: "A Life of Total Humility." On the other hand, a king may appear to behave in a rather grand fashion, whereas inside he genuinely sees himself as totally unworthy.

Sometimes things aren’t quite the way they seem. Sometimes a cool air conditioner can look like a street heater blasting out its own hot air.

Hidden Miracles

“If you walk in My laws…” (26:3)

The purpose of this world is to be a factory to produce a product called Olam Haba – the World-to-Come.

That is our only target, and the mitzvot our only passport.

However, you can read the Torah from cover to cover and you won’t find one specific promise about the reward for keeping the mitzvot in the next world. Promises of reward in this world abound. We are promised the rains in their time. The land will give its produce and the trees will bear fruit. There will be an abundance of food that we will eat to satiety. We will dwell securely in our land. No one will walk down a dark street and be frightened. No one will worry about sending his children off on the bus in the morning. There will be abundance and peace.

Why is it that the Torah makes no open promises about the reward for keeping the mitzvot in the next world, but is replete with details of their reward in this existence?

All reward and punishment in this world is through hidden miracles. When a person eats bacon or a cheeseburger and dies prematurely, nobody knows that he died because he ate bacon or a cheeseburger. People die at his age even when they don’t eat bacon or cheeseburgers. They die younger.

A person gives tzedaka and becomes rich. You don’t see that he became rich because he gavetzedaka. There are plenty of rich people who don’t give tzedaka – they inherited it or they won the sweepstake. The hidden miracle is that this person wasn’t destined to become rich or wasn’t supposed to die young, but because he gave tzedaka or because he ate the bacon or cheeseburger, G-d changed this person’s destiny. It’s miraculous, but it’s hidden. It looks like nature, but if it were actually the work of nature, then nothing that a person did in this world could have any effect on him. For a person is born under a certain mazal, a certain "destiny", and without the intervention of an outside force – the hidden miracle – nothing that a person did, whether for good or bad, would have any repercussions in this world.

That’s why the Torah speaks at great length about the outcome of the performance or non-performance of the mitzvot in this world. For it is truly miraculous that our actions should affect anything in this world, a world that, aside from these hidden miracles, is run by a system of mazaland nature.

However, as far as the next world is concerned, it’s obvious that our actions will have repercussions there. The Torah doesn’t need to stress the reward and punishment in that existence because it’s obvious that people who engage in spiritual pursuits and serve G-d faithfully should receive spiritual rewards. But it is certainly not natural that people who are immersed in the work of the spirit, the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvot should receive their reward in this world as well. Thus the Torah stresses the reward for keeping the mitzvot in this world because that is something that no one could surmise without being told of its existence.

Hidden Miracles

“If you walk in My laws…” (26:3)

The purpose of this world is to be a factory to produce a product called Olam Haba – the World-to-Come.

That is our only target, and the mitzvot our only passport.

However, you can read the Torah from cover to cover and you won’t find one specific promise about the reward for keeping the mitzvot in the next world. Promises of reward in this world abound. We are promised the rains in their time. The land will give its produce and the trees will bear fruit. There will be an abundance of food that we will eat to satiety. We will dwell securely in our land. No one will walk down a dark street and be frightened. No one will worry about sending his children off on the bus in the morning. There will be abundance and peace.

Why is it that the Torah makes no open promises about the reward for keeping the mitzvot in the next world, but is replete with details of their reward in this existence?

All reward and punishment in this world is through hidden miracles. When a person eats bacon or a cheeseburger and dies prematurely, nobody knows that he died because he ate bacon or a cheeseburger. People die at his age even when they don’t eat bacon or cheeseburgers. They die younger.

A person gives tzedaka and becomes rich. You don’t see that he became rich because he gavetzedaka. There are plenty of rich people who don’t give tzedaka – they inherited it or they won the sweepstake. The hidden miracle is that this person wasn’t destined to become rich or wasn’t supposed to die young, but because he gave tzedaka or because he ate the bacon or cheeseburger, G-d changed this person’s destiny. It’s miraculous, but it’s hidden. It looks like nature, but if it were actually the work of nature, then nothing that a person did in this world could have any effect on him. For a person is born under a certain mazal, a certain "destiny", and without the intervention of an outside force – the hidden miracle – nothing that a person did, whether for good or bad, would have any repercussions in this world.

That’s why the Torah speaks at great length about the outcome of the performance or non-performance of the mitzvot in this world. For it is truly miraculous that our actions should affect anything in this world, a world that, aside from these hidden miracles, is run by a system of mazaland nature.

However, as far as the next world is concerned, it’s obvious that our actions will have repercussions there. The Torah doesn’t need to stress the reward and punishment in that existence because it’s obvious that people who engage in spiritual pursuits and serve G-d faithfully should receive spiritual rewards. But it is certainly not natural that people who are immersed in the work of the spirit, the study of Torah and the performance of mitzvot should receive their reward in this world as well. Thus the Torah stresses the reward for keeping the mitzvot in this world because that is something that no one could surmise without being told of its existence.

The Right Man For The Job

"Moshe said to Aharon, ‘Come near to the Altar’…" (9:7)

Bungee-jumping, hang-gliding, free-fall parachuting, and riding over Niagara Fallsin a beer barrel all share one thing in common. You have to be absolutely meshuga to do them.

There’s a big difference between being fearless and being foolhardy.

However, there are times when even being afraid is an advantage. The Chafetz Chaim once decided that a particular talmid should take a vacant post as the Rabbi in distant community. Thetalmid was reluctant to go. He told the Chafetz Chaim he was afraid of the responsibility of being the only halachic authority for an entire community. The Chafetz Chaim replied to him, "Should I send someone who’s not afraid?"

Sometimes being afraid doesn’t disqualify someone from being the right man or woman for the job. Sometimes it’s the essential quality.

Moshe had to tell Aharon to "Come near to the altar". Rashi says that Aaron was embarrassed and afraid to approach the altar. Moshe told him not to be afraid, for it was precisely Aaron’s quality of awe which qualified him to be the Kohen Gadol.

When we want to become closer to G‑d and serve Him with more conviction and faithfulness, we could be embarrassed by our inadequacies. We might feel afraid, incapable of such a task. "Who am I to serve G-d?" we can think to ourselves. It is precisely that quality of self-effacement, of fear, which is the pre-requisite to be ‘the right man for the job".