Sparks of Vayeira

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Sparks of Vayeira

When Evil Self-Destructs

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We begin the parsha with the three angels that visit Avraham after his brit milah. Three angels, as many of us learned as children, means three missions. One mission per angel. There’s just one problem: the angel Raphael, who came to heal Avraham and also to save Lot from Sodom. He appears to have two missions. In the intersection of these two missions, Rav Shapiro finds some amazing insights.

The angels that appear to Avraham at the beginning of Parshat Vayeira did not come at a random time, with three unrelated messages. They came after the brit milah because the brit, related to the word beriyah, creation, changed the nature of the world. The angels came to reveal three aspects of the new world. First, the brit created the reality of Avraham as the mainstay of the world. His relationship with Hashem would keep the world in existence. We, his children, are necessary in order maintain that relationship. The first angel revealed that this new reality meant that Yitzchak would finally be born.

The second angel came to heal. The brit was an opening of the spiritual channels that fully connect our bodies to the spiritual roots of life. This connection between physical and spiritual is the essence of healing. The second angel came, not just to heal Avraham, but also to reveal a new level of healing which was now available to the world.

And what about the angel that came to destroy Sodom? How is that connected to the brit? The answer lies in the specific connection between Avraham and Lot. It is a connection that Avraham describes as, “we are brothers (Bereisheit 13:8).” Rashi adds, their faces were similar. They looked alike. But they went in opposite directions. Whichever way Lot went, Avraham went the other way. Their alikeness was like a mirror reflection, exactly opposite.

In which direction did each of them go? The psukim tell us that Lot traveled away from Avraham, “mikedem,” literally east. Rashi tells us this means “mikadmo shel olam, away from the One Who preceded the world (Bereisheit 13:10-11).” Avraham had innovated a way to connect to Hashem, and therefore to connect to the basis of our true existence in this world. Avraham remained connected to Hashem at all times, but Lot wanted out. He wanted to live his life without Hashem.

The results of these choices created real, practical distinctions. Where once they traveled together, Avraham and Lot’s lives became opposites. Avraham embodied the middah of chesed completely. He planted an orchard and invited in guests. Lot went to Sodom, a society where kindness was forbidden by law.

The root of Avraham’s kindness came from his connection to Hashem, his recognition that our existence in this world is possible only because of Hashem’s boundless kindness at every moment. This connection to Hashem was expressed through every moment of his life. Lot, on the other hand, moved away from the One Who proceeds the world. He went to Sodom, where life was viewed as a fait accompli, with no thought to what came before. Sodom believed that the world runs on justice and was created for man to work. Man must earn his existence in the world, and it is not for others to give him. And while there is some truth to the idea that this world is a place of work, Sodom forgot one thing. Like the “self-made man” who started his business with an investment from his father, Sodom forgot that our entire ability to do anything in this world is only because of the tremendous kindness Hashem did for us when he gave us life.

The brit milah revealed Hashem as the Source of our existence, while Sodom’s entire existence was predicated on separation from Hashem as the Source of the World. In the face of the reality of the brit, the continued existence of Sodom became an impossibility. Their belief in their own self-reliance caused them to self-destruct. Sodom was inverted. The world experienced a new reality, a truth that is fundamental to the entire course of our world.  Evil, when followed to its own conclusions, will ultimately reach such self-contradictory proportions it will self-destruct.

When Hashem originally created the world, He created a world of good and truth which stood opposite falsehood. There was no concept of “evil.” We introduced the concept of evil to the world when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are the reason that sin looks good in our eyes. For Moshiach to come, we need to remove the evil we added to our world. There are only two ways this can happen. The first is if the entire human realm unanimously agrees that evil should be dismissed. We all let go of it completely. This is what the Gemara calls a generation that is entirely righteous (Sanhedrin 98a). As this seems highly unlikely, it’s a good thing that there is another option, what the Gemara calls a generation that is entirely evil. In this generation, Rav Shapiro tells us, “the bad becomes stronger and stronger until it reaches such dimensions as to contradict itself, and its impossibility becomes glaringly evident (p. 480).” When evil advances to such a degree that it becomes unsustainable, transformation can take place.  As we say in our tefillot for the Yamim Noraim, “wickedness shall dissipate like smoke.” Sodom was the first, but the rest of the evil in the world will someday follow.

But that is not the end of the story. There is one final step in the process which we learn from a man named Eliezer ben Durdaya (Avodah Zara 17a). This was a man who spent his entire life in pursuit of the basest pleasures, to the exclusion of anything meaningful. This continued until one day he recognized that he had lived himself into a state of non-existence. He was completely disconnected to anything real. The moment he recognized the truth was a moment of self-destruction. He perished from this world. But it is also the moment when he gained everlasting life.  He was transformed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Durdaya.  

His Jewish soul, like all Jewish souls, could never be destroyed. Actually, everything created through Hashem’s eternal world cannot be destroyed. This is what Rabbi Eliezer taught us. When we are at the point of self-destruction, we have the choice to destroy our old self through the process of transforming it into something better. This is the real truth of Sodom. From the ruins of Sodom was the seed of our final true existence.

Avraham brought the world closer to its true purpose, its healing, through direct connection with Hashem. He taught us truth through bracha. But Lot also brought the world closer to is true purpose, in an inverted way. Lot, the midrash tells us, had tents: the tent of Rut the Moabite, who was the great grandmother of David HaMelech, and the tent of Naamah the Ammonite, who was the mother of Rechavam, heir of Shlomo HaMelech. Lot taught us that evil self-destructs.  That it is unsustainable. That when evil grows stronger, strong enough to self-destruct, it is also part of the healing that our world needs. This is why it was the same angel, Rafael, who brought healing to Avraham and who saved Lot from Sodom. From both Avraham and from Lot, the Moshiach is born.  

Sparks of Lech Lecha

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Sparks of Lech Lecha

Space of Our Fathers

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Parshat Lech Lecha opens up seemingly out of nowhere. Hashem tells Avraham, “Go!” But who is Avraham? Why does Hashem decide to speak to him? Why won’t He tell Avraham where he’s going? We’re not sure. Like Avraham, we just have to follow along, and see where Hashem is taking us. Rav Shapiro tells us that this is exactly the point. Lech Lecha was the moment Hashem promised Avraham that he would be a nation. And that required a moment of complete newness, a moment of stepping out of everything known, because that was the nature and the greatness of Avraham’s emunah and the founding principle of our nation.

We usually translate emunah as faith, which unfortunately does very little to help us understand what Emunah is really all about. Rav Shapiro explains that emunah is based in reliance. Specifically, it is our reliance on Hashem because we recognize that there is a limit to our understanding and abilities. The nature of the world we live in is that it has both an external layer, and an internal, hidden aspect. We see this represented physically in the nature of the earth that we walk on. Hidden within the earth are two types of treasure. There is tremendous energy that we have only begun to harness. And there are precious rocks and stones. None of this is visible on the surface.

The nature of the physical earth is representative of the nature of the Torah, which was the blueprint for our physical reality. The Torah also has a peshat level, a simple level, which we can understand on the surface, and then endless layers of spiritual depth when we begin to dig. People are created in this same mold, with external kochot, and internal kochot that come from our eternal soul, which are usually not apparent on our surface.

We don’t always think about it, but the way Hashem guides us in time follows this pattern as well. There is the external reality, the history that we can all study and understand. But there is also an internal level, the spiritual guidance of Hashem that is hidden within the history of the world. Pirkei D’Rebbe Eliezer (Chapter 8) explains that Avraham understood this fully and was in possession of a tradition that had been passed down from Adam to Chanoch to Metushelach to Noach and then to Shem. It was called the mystery of intercalculation, and it is a tradition that was passed down to us as a nation.

The intercalculation of the year is the way that we synchronize the solar calendar with the lunar calendar. The solar cycle is the cycle that is established and firm. This is the shana, the yearly cycle, which is connected to the word shoneh, repeat, because it does not change. The lunar cycle is the cycle of the month, the chodesh, from the word chadash, new. It is a cycle that is full of ascents and descents and is constantly renewing itself. Intercalculation is the power to perceive the internal content and hidden treasure that exists in the seemingly unchanging external cycle of the sun.

In Hebrew, intercalculation is called ibbur, pregnancy. Pregnancy, of course, is where one complete being exists in another. The chachamim tell us that the history of our world is also pregnant. There is another course that is taking place through history, which is beyond what we see on the surface. There is an internal plan, Hashem’s plan, leading to Hashem’s goal. In the end, the revealed course of the world will give birth to the internal course.

Avraham understood how to integrate the revealed physical world, in all its realms, with the inner spiritual reality of the world. He understood that Hashem was guiding him and the entire world. This was the basis of Avraham’s emunah. Rav Shapiro points out that the world considers those who are faithful as closeminded. The opposite is true. A person without emunah is a person who refuses to move beyond what his five senses and his limited intelligence tell him. He feels the need to be in control of his entire reality, and so the only reality he will admit to is what he already knows.  

A person with emunah is a person who understands that he doesn’t understand, that the world is much more than he can grasp. Emunah means understanding that I am not the One who establishes reality, and therefore I don’t know exactly what I will do next. I have reached something beyond me, and that is what I will rely on. This was lech lecha. Avraham was asked to go to a place that could not be showed to him before he got there. It cannot be understood until it is experienced. So he followed Hashem, and he went.

And because he went, the promises Hashem made to Avraham when He spoke the words “lech lecha” came true. Rashi, based on Pesachim 117b, understands those promises in a surprising way. He understands that they are fulfilled through the words we say at the beginning of our Amidah, mentioning our Fathers. Brachot 26b teaches that the tefillot were instituted by our Fathers. This is not just an ancillary fact. Rav Shapiro tells us that this is an important facet of how our Fathers were revealed as Fathers. Instituting the tefillot was intrinsic to their nature as our Avot.

What does it mean to be an Av? It’s primary meaning in our daily life is father. But the first time it is used in the Torah it does not mean that. The Torah tells us (Bereisheit 4:20-21) that Yaval was the father of all who dwell in tents and breed cattle and Yuval was the father of all who handle the harp and the flute. Obviously, they were not the literal fathers of all musicians and cattle herders.

Radak in Sharashim connects the world ‘av’ to the ‘avoh, to want.’ An av is someone who strongly desires something, and from his desire for it, creates the space for it to exist in the world. Yaval and Yuval had a desire for human development. And that desire and vision created the place in the world for all those who came after.

Avraham also had a vision, and a desire. His desire was to follow Hashem, and to live in Hashem’s spiritual reality. And this is exactly what Hashem promised him. Within the natural order of the world, there was no ability for Avraham to have children. But Hashem told him (Bereisheit 15:5 with Rashi), go outside of your mazal, outside of what is possible in the natural world. Hashem made a new space for Avraham from within the inner spirituality of the world. And that space is the space that we exist in today.

Our ability to pray is due to our Fathers. Rav Shapiro tells us, this is how they left themselves with us. They created the space we stand in when we pray. And our tefillah is the way that we move ourselves into the space that Avraham created for us to exist in the world. We therefore begin our prayers mentioning Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaacov. When we daven we are the fulfillment of the promise that Hashem made to Avraham at Lech Lecha. We are a great nation, and we are blessing.

The Gemara tells us (Brachot 6b) that whoever sets a fixed space for his prayer has the G-d of Avraham as his helper. What does it mean to set a fixed space for our prayer? It means giving our prayers the correct aspect of space. When we pray, we enter a new place, another realm of existence. We are facing our Creator. We return to the supernatural space that Avraham created for us in this world. If we only take a moment to understand what this means, we can understand the tremendous power Avraham bequeathed to us with each and every prayer. May we all be zoche.

 

Sparks of Noach

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Sparks of Noach

The Power of Being Bent Out of Shape

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Welcome to Cheshvan, the month of bul. At least that’s the name for it in Melachim Aleph (6:38). The Midrash Tanchuma (Noach, 11) tells us that this is actually a shortened form of the word mabul, flood. The month of Cheshvan was the month when the mabul began, and it retained the imprint of the flood for centuries. Every year, on the 17th of Cheshvan, it would rain for 40 days straight. This continued until King Shlomo completed the Beit HaMikdash, also in the month of Cheshvan. With the Beit Hamikdash built, we were able to pray for rain properly, and the yearly forty days of rain stopped. The letter mem, which is equivalent to the number 40, was dropped from the name, and the month became known as bul, which is the name used in Tanach for an unformed block of wood (Yeshayahu 44:19).  

Rav Shapiro tells us that this transformation, from mabul to bul is significant. Mabul is a mass of water. It is matter with no form. Imagine trying to hold water in your hand and give it a shape. It is not possible. A block of wood is an entirely different matter. In the hands of a skilled craftsman, it has the potential to be formed into almost anything. Cheshvan was the month of the mabul, but it became the month of the finishing of the Beit Hamikdash. It is the month that once brought the Earth to complete extinction through water but is now the month that we begin to pray in earnest for rain. The process of moving from mabul to bul is the process of building ourselves up.

To understand this more fully, we need to understand that the punishment of the flood was not arbitrary. It was middah kneged middah. They made themselves like water, and so they were destroyed with water. What does it mean to be like water? Water is identified by our  Sages as relating to desire. It moves and goes wherever it likes. A person who acts like water is a person who, moment by moment, is led by his desires. He accepts no limitations. However, since limitation is the essence of form, he also has no form. In essence, instead of acting, he is acted upon. He is formed by his environment and his desires. And this destroys the true form of man. We were created to create ourselves and shape our world. When we allow ourselves to be led by our circumstances and our every passing desire, we dissolve the essence of who we are. The generation of the flood spiritually dissolved themselves and their world. The result was the flood, the physical dissolution of themselves and their world.  

The flood returned the world to the way it was on the second day of creation, the only day when Hashem did not say, “this is good.” On the second day of creation the waters had free reign over the Earth. Then, on the third day something amazing happened. Following the command of Hashem, the waters went against their nature, and formed themselves. They gathered themselves into seas and made space for the dry land. They reformed and recreated themselves. This is the spiritual root of why a gathering of water, a mikveh, has the power to purify. They gave themselves a new form, and in the process, they gained the power to grant new form. The process of going to the mikveh is a reenactment of the original process of creation. We immerse ourselves in water, where we have no place, and then emerge and become visible as the land became visible on the third day of creation, giving us a place to exist.

The promise made after the flood is that we would always have that place to exist, we would never again we completely wiped out. That promise was made with a rainbow. The rainbow is a natural phenomenon which Hashem used to reveal a deep aspect about our world. It is a half-circle of water that refracts the sun’s light. It is a symbol of the beauty that is possible when the unformed matter of this world is illuminated by the light of Hashem’s presence. For this reason, our Chachamim compare the rainbow to the revelation of Hashem’s Presence. This half circle from above meets the curve of our earth, and the two together form one complete circle. The message is that the two worlds are connected. The revelation from above is completed in the world below. Creation is in accord with the Higher Will.

Ramban tells us that the rainbow is also the symbol of an archer’s bow, pointing toward the heavens. A bow is made from a piece of wood, naturally straight, which is pulled into a curve, against its natural form. The force of the arrow comes from the force of the wood, as it exerts force to return to its original form. The immense power of the archer’s bow comes from the aspiration of the wood to return to its natural state. The more the wood of the bow was changed from its natural state, the greater its power to return to itself. The message is that from the time of the flood, the force of the world moving away from where it is meant to be will no longer move us to destruction. Instead, it will propel us back towards Hashem.

Rav Shapiro tells us that this is exactly what we are experiencing today. We are in the dawn of the Moshiach. When the dawn begins, before everything becomes light, there is a moment of darkness that is darker than the night. The first ray of the dawning of Moshiach is the wisdom which has flooded into our world in astonishing amounts since the dawning of the industrial revolution. Dawn’s first ray does not bring light with it. It is an expression of the immense power of a world that aspires with all its might to return to its natural spiritual state. From that expression of power we can only imagine what it will be like to experience that power in the form of beautiful light. At the moment, what is being revealed is the power of the bow, but at the time of redemption, the entire brilliant rainbow will be revealed.

This Wednesday we begin to pray for rain here in Israel. On Yom Kippur we stepped into the mikvah, and came out brand new, like a bul, a block of wood. After the chagim, we return home. Once we are home, we can pray for water that helps us grow and doesn’t destroy us. And if we feel a bit bent out of shape, we should know that that’s all part of the plan. The seventh of Cheshvan is the day that we begin to reshape ourselves in the new year, the first day of the Divine Service to form this year anew. Now’s the time to water and tend to the newness of this year.

Sparks of Bereisheit

Sparks of Bereisheit

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Sparks of Bereisheit

The Process Is Everything

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The first moment of creation.  We can’t understand anything about it. And yet, the Torah tells us: Bereisheit Bara Elokim, in the beginning G-d created. We can’t understand these words fully, but we can learn from them. Each one of these first three words has an important message about who we are as created beings and what our purpose is in this world.

Bereisheit, In the Beginning

In the beginning, God created beginnings. Specifically, the Tikunei Zohar (19b) teaches, two beginnings. [Bereisheit = bet reisheit = two beginnings]. These beginnings were both created through the first utterance of creation, bereisheit, which brought time into existence. It is our perception of the nature of time and the nature of our existence within time creates the divergence between these two beginnings.

The first beginning is expressed in Bamidbar 24:20, “The beginning of nations is Amalek—and his end is eternal oblivion.”  This is the depressing way we normally think about time. We perceive ourselves as first existing, statically in this world. We imagine ourselves to be, essentially, as we are now, and then thing of time as a force, acting on that essential self. The force of time slowly wears us down, until, after what is often years of battle against the inevitable, we are worn down and disappear. The end is eternal oblivion.

There is, however, another beginning. It is the beginning of Israel. We are called beginning. The Torah is called beginning. And if we understand this way of beginning, we can perceive reality in a different way. The first creation of our world is time. Time is process. Our true existence is an eternal existence that exists beyond this world. For the purposes of existence in this world what we were given is not static existence, but time. Hashem has gifted each of us, individually, with an amount of time.

Our amount of time has a beginning. And the beginning means that our time is a path and a process. We are moving toward a defined end, Hashem’s planned destiny. We exist as fire exists, not statically, but in constant process. Just as the fire is the continuous expression of the hidden potential of its fuel, our lives are a continuous process of expressing the hidden depths of our soul. We were brought into this world in order to reveal the point of infinity that lies beyond us.

We were brought into this world for the process. This is the essence of who we are, of our existence in this world. We are not responsible for reaching the goal. We were never meant to achieve perfection, only to be in a state of polishing and perfecting ourselves. We are invited to enjoy the growth and the process, and trust that Hashem will bring us to our destiny.

Bara, Created

The first Ramban in Bereisheit explains that there is only one time that the word “bara, He created” is used in the description of creation, because it was only once that Hashem created something from nothing. All of creation was brought into being in the first moment of creation. “In the beginning G-d created heaven and earth.” Everything was there, but nothing was formed. It all existed in potential. “The earth was tohu.” It was astonishing in its lack of form. And then it was “boho,” an unformed mass where the potential for form can be seen. Still, “there was darkness on the depths of unformed matter” until Hashem said, “Let there be light.” And with light came the ability to perceive meaning and form.

Rav Shapiro sums up the process of creation: desolateness, followed by emptiness, and then light. It sees unrelatable, but it is actually an explanation of our entire avodah in this world. We were created to be creators. G-d’s first act in forming the world was to create light. After the conclusion of the first Shabbat, as Adam was sent out of Gan Eden into the world, Hashem gave Adam the knowledge and ability to create fire from two stones (Pesachim 54a). As a nation our first mitzvah was to find the new moon, that bit of light in the darkness and sanctify it.  

As we mentioned, our existence in this world is all process. We exist at the moment of our birth as the world existed at the moment of its birth. We are all potential. The world around us also exists only in potential. Our experience of the world, and our understanding of the world, is what invests it with form and meaning. Our experience of ourselves is what invests us with significance.

We begin in any moment in time in darkness, because the meaning of the moment is unclear. Sometimes the meaning is astonishingly unclear. Sometimes it is just hidden behind the veil of habit. We are in tohu and bohu. But we can create light. For six days Hashem formed the world into an astonishing variety of meaningful forms. We are created in G-d’s image, with the power of speech. We can choose to form the world around us in a meaningful way with our thoughts and our words. At one and the same time we create ourselves and our world.

 

Elokim, G-d the Creator

We were created b’zelem elokim, in the image of G-d, with the ability to create our world. The process of our creation as creators involved the combination of earth and water. The earth was taken from the place of the mizbayach, the place of our atonement. The water of our creation came from a special mist that Hashem brought on the land. This was necessary, because as Rashi (Bereisheit 2:5) tells us, it had not yet rained. There could be no rain because man had not yet been created. Rain only comes down into the world through our prayers. It is the physical expression a spiritual truth: the higher and lower worlds are interconnected. For this reason, it is inherently impossible to predict or control.

Water is necessary for our existence, and we can only acquire it through prayer. We are created from something that depends upon our prayers, because just as water is the necessary component of our existence, so is prayer. It is not that we exist, and then when we need something we pray. We exist because we pray. Just as without water we cannot exist, without prayer there is no existence.

We were created to create ourself and our world through prayer. This is why the tamid offering is called “karbani lechmi,” (Bamidbar 28:2) my offering, my bread. Just as food sustains the bond between our body and soul, the korbanot, together with our prayers sustain the bond between Hashem’s Will and Presence and our physical world.

Hashem created our world as an expression of His Kingship.  A king is connected to his subjects. He can hear, accept and fulfill requests. Prayer is therefore reciprocal. Just as we stand before Hashem and speak to Him, so too, He stands before us and listens. This is the act of prayer. It is for our benefit, but it also fulfills something beyond us. Every time we stand before Hashem, we uphold the attribute of Kingship. When we stand in prayer, we are together with Hashem. We strengthen the bond of Hashem’s presence in our world. We literally create our world and keep it in existence.

We are just beginning to pray for rain. May all of us be blessed with a year of physical and spiritual abundance.  

Zot Habracha and Shemini Atzeret

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Foundations of Joy

The Torah ends with three pesukim which are a sweeping tribute to the greatness of Moshe and his unique and lasting accomplishments. The last words of the tribute are, “which Moses performed before the eyes of all Israel.” Rashi tells us this refers to when Moshe broke the luchot. This last comment of Rashi’s on the Torah takes us back to a moment of national disgrace, but also paradoxically, to a moment of healing. Moshe received a yasher koach from Hashem for his decision to smash the luchot. Reish Lakish, the ultimate baal teshuva, comments on this that there are times when Torah is established only through a process of bitul, of negation (Menachot 99a).

This is an amazingly fitting and powerful message for this time of year. These thoughts of brokenness and repair accompany us as we finish our yearly reading of the Torah, the cycle of chagim in Tishrei and the cycle of the shalosh regalim. Years ago in the desert, the broken luchot were placed into the aron alongside the new luchot we received on Yom Kippur. When we marched forward as a nation into Eretz Yisrael, we were carrying them both together. The second luchot were born from the broken shards of the first luchot, just as today the joy of Sukkot is born from our brokenness on Yom Kippur, and our success in the new year is built on our ability to absorb and accept not just our successes but also the failures of the year we are leaving behind.

This idea takes on more depth through Rav Schorr’s beautiful explanation of the deeper meaning of the nisuch hamayim, the water drawing ceremony which took place when the Beit Hamikdash was standing. During the nisuch hamayim, the nation would gather together in the courtyard every night, singing and dancing with unparalleled joy until daybreak. Afterward, a procession would gather water from the Shiloach spring. The water would be poured on the altar together with the wine libation of the morning offering.

Rashi (Vayikra 2:13) explains that the spiritual origins of this ceremony began during the time of creation, when the lower waters were separated from the higher waters, causing them to cry out to Hashem, “we too want to stand before the King!” One way Hashem consoled the waters was that they would be part of the nisuch hamayim ceremony. However, as Rav Shorr points out, it was a very ironic consolation. The water of the nisuch hamayim was poured down the holes in the alter, to the shittin, the empty space under the alter, and from there fell all the way back down to the depths from whence they came. What type of consolation was this?

To answer, Rav Schorr looks more deeply into the meaning of the shittin, the empty space into which the waters fell. This empty space was originally formed when Hashem gathered up earth for the creation of man. It was the empty space left in the land from the creation of man. It was also the place where Adam offered his first Korban and the place where Avraham brought Yitzchak to the Akeidah.  As Rambam writes, “Man was created from the place of his atonement (Hilchot Beit HaBechirah 2:2).” The shittin symbolizes the empty space Hashem carves out to make room for evil in the world. In other words, it is the place of our bechira, our free will, the place where Hashem’s presence is hidden enough for us to be able to have a real choice between good and bad. It is the place where evil appears real.

Our bechira is born from our separation from Hashem, and so the pain of the lower waters is our pain was well.  From the moment of our creation as independent beings, we too have been crying out that we want to stand before Hashem. When we pour out the water of the nisuch hamayim, and at the same time “pour out our hearts like water before Hashem (Eicha 2:19),” the action becomes the kli, the vessel, to return both the water and ourselves to our source. On a deeper level, when we use our bechira to reveal Hashem in this world we are able to lift the curtain. We reveal that Hashem’s presence is really everywhere. Even in the depths we are still “standing before the King.” The water of the nisuch hamayim physically descends but spiritually rises.

This is the experience we take with us into Shmini Azteret. The Sfat Emet tells us that each of the Shalosh Regalim relate to one of the Avot: Avraham to Pesach, Yitzchak to Shavout and Yaacov to Sukkot. Shmini Atzeret is the holiday of Yosef. Like Yosef, who was sometimes considered an Av and sometimes considered a shevet, it has a bit of a duality. Shmini Atzeret is in some ways part of Sukkot, and in some ways stands on its own.

Yosef was the tzaddik who learned the lessons of Yom Kippur and applied them to life. He understood the real meaning of forgiveness, which is not necessarily what we might assume. When we say to Hashem, “Forgiveness is with you (Tehillim 130:4),” Malbim tells us that this is literal. Forgiving in the sense of making the wrong as if it didn’t happen is an attribute of Hashem.  When someone has truly wronged us, we cannot make it as if it never happened. If we try we will often find ourselves, years after an event, triggered and angry about something we thought we forgave so long ago. For this reason, there is no instance of one person forgiving another in Tanach. Instead, there is something different, something that is exemplified by Yosef.

This is a point Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi makes eloquently in her book about Yom Kippur. Rabbanit Mizrachi explains that the Torah asks us not to forgive but to make peace. When the brothers came to ask for forgiveness, his response was, “You intended to harm me, but G-d intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done—the salvation of many lives (Bereisheit 50:20).”

 “Joseph teaches us the meaning of true reconciliation. It is not about making our peace with evil and with evildoers, but about making our peace with what happened and where it led us. It is about being able to say to G-d, ‘Master of the Universe, from this degradation and loss of dignity, I have found salvation…It is about recognizing how everything that happened to us can make the world better for others, without destroying us.” (Yearning to Return, p.137)

Our sukkah is a sukkah of peace. It is the time when we make peace not just with others, but with all the events of our own lives, and with ourselves. As the Ohr Gedalyahu points out, at that moment when Yosef made peace with the brothers, they experienced a complete shift in their perception. They had been interacting with the King of Egypt. They had been facing the enemy. And then the enemy was revealed to be their brother, the brother they had thrown out, but who was willing to make peace with them anyway. The entire world as they understood it shifted. The empty space of evil was revealed to be the place of the revelation of Hashem.

Yosef’s name is given two meanings in Tanach. It means both gathering in and adding (Bereisheit 30:23-24).  Shmini Atzeret, the last day of chag, the day of Yosef, is a day of this two-fold avodah. We gather in all that we have accomplished, including all of our failings. We recognize that just as the ark carries both the broken luchot and the new luchot, we can carry together, in unity, both our successes and our failures. From that place we can move forward and add.

The Sfat Emet (בראשונה”” (תרלו tells us that this is why Sukkot comes after Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur we are all baalei teshuva. We feel that we have no place in the world. However, if we can create no place for ourselves from our own strength, Hashem steps in and gives us a place. And the place Hashem gives us is a better, higher place than we could earn on our own. “In the place where baalei teshuva stand, the perfectly righteous are not able to stand (Brachot 34b),” because baalei teshuva stand in a place that was given to them as a gift from heaven.  

Our sukkah is a gift of place from God. We sit in it during the holiday of the harvest, and at the time when the entire world is gathering in the harvest, we do a personal harvest. We gather in our actions over the last 40 days and take the time to absorb the results of our spiritual activities, unifying them, and allowing them to take root in our soul, so that we can use them as a source of joy for the entire year. We can take the time to recognize the value of both our successes and our mistakes. The joy of Sukkot is built on a recognition that Hashem loves us and created us imperfect, so that we could have free will. The process is everything. Every mistake, every place of emptiness, is a precious foundation stone for growth and joy.