The Price of Fear

The process of teshuvah (repentance, return) obtains many assets for our soul: purity, cleanliness, and a sense of rebirth. The Halakhic believer has the ability to stand before the mirror after his viduy (confession) and regret, and say with sincerity and integrity that he has sinned – and this ability highlights the entire landscape of his life. Simply put, teshuvah has an element of "cure" for the person's spiritual status. 

Truly, as Rav Kook explained at length, the Torah desires to see people who are strong, courageous, proactive, and of initiative – people who go out to "rectify the world in the Kingdom of G-d." Of course, there are times that such people find that they also make "mistakes" – and these are to be corrected by teshuvah. As with any medicine, however, teshuvah not only cures, but also causes a form of weakness – in this case, some darkening of the stronghold of the will and soul, noticeably weighing down on the flow of life.

But this is actually something good. One cannot reach complete rectification without a full stop, even if temporary, of the bursting forth of the powers of the soul. This occurs during the High Holy Days. Then, once these day have passed, when we are pure and clean, and our soul's powers of action are cleansed and ready to return with greater and purer force – this is the time for the joy of the Sukkot festival. 

This is the time of rebuilding of the forces of life. The bursting joy can restore our active and constructive character in purity, and will then be able to stream forth in our complex reality – until the next time teshuvah is needed, followed again by the joy of Sukkot. And thus we have the Torah's complete spiritual-therapeutic framework, which rectifies and detracts from our strength, but also rebuilds and gives renewed forces of vitality and happiness. 

As a rule, Sukkot is our "time of happiness" - multi-faceted joy, touching on the Holy Temple, the Holy Land, various practical mitzvot, and more. In particular, one special dimension of joy on Sukkot has to do with "spreading out" and expansion, both physically and spiritually. On the days of awe and fear before Sukkot we are as if closed up in our homes and synagogues, while on Sukkot we are free to spread forth. 

An allusion to this positive aspect of Ufaratzta, "you shall spread out," is found in the list of punishments and rebukes in Parashat B'chukotai. There it says that if we sin, part of the punishment will be that we will be "gathered into our cities" – as opposed to the meadows and mountains. 

A unique description of the tension between the city and the outdoor expanses is expressed in a poem by none other than the Nazir, Rabbi David Cohen, a top disciple of HaRav Kook. During one of his trips to the Judean Desert, in which he sought to hear G-d's word in a place devoid of the distractions of the vanities of the world, he wrote: 

"… Finally, finally, the lion in me wishes to cut the binding ropes placed upon it, the ropes of a house - and it bursts forth to run away, to wander and be alone while seeking and awaiting G-d's salvation. Alone and solitary among the hills and mountains, the valleys and brooks – here in the plains of the desert, the mountains, so close to G-d… How lowly is the scorn in the city houses and their businesses, trades of ants. My soul thirsts for the expanse… freedom that is sacred unto G-d…" [freely translated]

 When we remember that the writer is a mature, tremendous Torah scholar who would spend nearly every minute from the end of the Sabbath until the beginning of the next one between his chair and study table in the Beit Medrash of Rav Kook, these words take on special weight. Not everyone is on the same level of seeking out G-d and His expanses as the Rabbi-Nazir of holy blessed memory. Yet it appears that the Torah is aware of the sense of being closed up that we often experience – and a bit of the remedy for such is found in the exit from our protected homes to the Sukkah outdoors... 

Happiness: Serious Business 

The serious nature of these Holy Days of Awe is certainly evident from many of the words in our prayers: "Place Your fear, and awe, upon the peoples… and may they fear You… Power in Your hand, might in Your right hand, and Your name inspires fear…"

But we sometimes forget that together with these expressions are not a few phrases of uplifting: "Grant joy to Your land, and happiness to Your city… And thus the righteous will see and rejoice, and the upright will exult, and the pious will celebrate in delight."

The Ramchal (18th-century author of the classic Mesilat Yesharim, Path of the Just) sees in this combination an opportunity for responsibility and serious work: 

"You have to know that even though Israel is chosen and sanctified, it is not in its highest state until the entire world, with all its parts, is rectified… And when [this happens], it will have to be that the nation of Israel is in the Land of Israel, because they are the Chosen Nation, and from the Chosen Land, and in Israel will reign a King of the dynasty of David who was the Chosen King, through whom all of Israel connects with holiness – and if even one of these conditions is lacking, the holiness cannot be in full force… There are many levels in Israel – righteous, upright, pious [as in the prayer] – but they must all be in happiness…" [From his work Maamar HaChokhmah]

Joy thus takes on a much broader dimension than simply one's piousness in his individual service of G-d. It rather goes as far as a sense of national responsibility – it is incumbent upon us to be with happiness, even when it is not so easy in light of the events. We must understand that just as "in water, faces answers to face" (Mishlei 27,19), so too, one's spiritual world matches his demeanor: The more we increase our Torah study and observance of mitzvot with faith and sacred insights into G-d's ways of leadership, so will Israel's happiness increase, and so will the shadows and sadness depart from us, and "G-d will remain exalted alone on that day on the Holy Mountain in Jerusalem." 

Thus the joy in our High Holiday prayers combines with the joy of Sukkot and its international dimension, which is reflected both in the number of Sukkot sacrifices in the Temple (70, standing for the Seventy Nations), and also in the Sukkot Haftarah reading: 

 "And it will come to pass that everyone left of the nations who came up against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to prostrate himself to the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to celebrate the festival of Tabernacles…" (Zecharia 14)

Translated by Hillel Fendel