A Positive Negative..

A Holiday for Sins?

We have a holiday for celebrating redemption and freedom, holidays for celebrating repentance and resolution, a holiday for celebrating the gift of Torah, holidays for celebrating our salvation from oppression and death...

But, wait we have one more holiday, Sukkot. For what? For celebrating the day we return to sin…

The Midrash is bothered by why the Bible calls Sukkot "the first day," when in truth it is the fifteenth of the month. The Midrash explains, Sukkot is a “first when it comes to our new account of sin.”

After our slate was wiped clean on the Day of Atonement, the first time we begin our new list of sins in the coming year is on the Holiday of Sukkot.

This is truly a strange way to describe a Holiday, in such negative terms.

The great Chassidic master, known as the defense advocate of the Jewish people, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (Ukraine, 1740-1809) offered a marvelous explanation to explain this enigmatic Midrash.

Once Rabbi Levi of Berdichev met an infamous sinner in the street. So this sinner, trying to mock at the good innocent rabbi, says to him: So Rabbi, you have any nice and kind words to say to a sinner like me?

Rabbi Levi Yitzchak told him: "You know something? I am jealous of you! After all, the Talmud says that after you do repentance, after you return to G-d with love, your deliberate sins will become merits! Imagine how many merits you will have!"

What’s the Logic?

How can a sin, a mistake, a betrayal itself become considered a merit?

When I repent out of love, not just out of fear, then what happens is that my very negative experience becomes part of my new relationship with G-d, with truth, with my soul. The very sin I have committed now becomes part of my love; it allows me to experience a far more mature, sober, deep love and appreciation for the truth.

Take an addict who undergoes real recovery and truly surrenders to the Higher Power. What happens in the process is that the very addiction, the very negative experience, confers upon the recovering addict a depth and a sensitivity that another person who has not endured the pain of deception and the pain of denial and the pain of addiction cannot experience. The addiction, the betrayal, and the depression itself become the starting point and springboard for a whole new depth and passion in living.

Our very downfalls then become springboards which prove to be sources of elevation for us.

There's a story told about the legendary head of IBM, Thomas Watson. On one occasion a senior manager made a serious business mistake that cost the company ten million dollars. Watson summoned him to his office. "I guess you want my resignation," the manager said. "Are you crazy?" Watson replied. "We've just spend ten million dollars educating you."

This is true concerning every negative experience in life. A missed flight cannot be unmissed; a harsh word uttered to a loved one cannot be unspoken. But the MEANING of these events can be changed. We can literally travel back in time to redefine the significance of what occurred.

And this is the meaning of the above quoted Midrash. By the time the Holiday of Sukkot comes about, the love and appreciation for doing things the proper way, for the right reasons, has reached such a crescendo, that included in all this euphoria, are all the sins of the past year that contribute to this feeling and they become counted as merits.