Insights from Reverend Hazan Benlolo

Dear Congregants,

Here is a thought from Partners in Torah that will lead us into the Holiday of Sukkot.

Want to know our favorite thing about Yom Kippur? The fact that we end the day feeling a little lighter, a little freer than we did before. With the forgiveness of the holiday, we no longer feel weighed down by our mistakes. A brighter future lies ahead, where we can start fresh and become the person we were meant to be.

And thankfully, all this positivity doesn’t just stay in our minds.

Instead, we act on it and jump straight into the next mitzvah on our radar: preparation for the holiday of Sukkot. (Coming up this Sunday night!) While it’s not easy to build a house (even a temporary one), the physical work of building an outdoor home allows us to roll up our sleeves and get involved in something positive right away.

There are several mitzvot associated with the holiday of Sukkot. While you might know the practical how-to’s of each, have you ever wondered what we can learn from them? Are there any deeper spiritual take-aways for us? (Spoiler alert: there are many, and we can’t list them all here!) But to make your holiday more meaningful, we’ve gone ahead and picked out a few lessons that we can glean from three of the holiday’s mitzvot below:

ARBA MINIIM

Our first lesson comes from the mitzvah of shaking the lulav and etrog (the 4 species). According to a Midrash, each of the 4 species represents a different type of Jew:

Hadassim = People with good deeds, but no Torah

Lulav = People with Torah, but no good deeds

Etrog = People with Torah and good deeds

Aravah = People with no Torah or good deeds

However, G-d commands us to bind them all together. Why?

It shows that each type of Jew has something that he can "teach" the others. (For example, those who have good deeds, but no Torah can teach us the importance of taking action.)

This Sukkot let's remind ourselves that we have something we can learn from each Jew.