The season of Joy

The holiday of Sukkot Oct. 9 thru Oct. 15 2014, has the unique power of Joy. The bible repeats three times, the very special connection this holiday has with joy. Literally, the people enjoyed over the Holiday, the grains and fruits just harvested, and the atonement, received over the Holiday of Yom Kippur.

When entering a Sukkah the holy book of Mysticism the Zohar says, we are sitting under the shadow of G-d. In Hebrew the word Sukkah has the numerical value of 91 and the two names of G-d that describe G-ds attribute of mercy also equals 91. The Holy Baal Shem Tov says, when a person spends time in a Sukkah, he is refined, and draws a G-dly light, similar to when a person is immersed in a Mikvah- ritual bath.

“Strength and Joy are in the place of G-d.” Where there is the perfection, clarity and fullness of G-d, there is total and complete Joy.  Sitting in a Sukkah is described as “G-ds right hand embraces me. “ Just as a person embraces his friend out of great love, not letting him separate from the embrace, similarly  in a Sukkah, the four walls which correspond to the four letters  of G-ds name, and the roof, which is    G-ds shadow, surround the person from every side, with holiness and closeness to G-d.

Once a student of the Tzemach Tzedek wrote to him, that he had difficulty feeling joy. The Rebbe responded. “Your thoughts, speech and actions have the greatest influence on your behavior. Therefore, one must make sure to think only thoughts that evoke happiness, to refrain from speaking about the negative and dispirited things, and behave in a joyful manner even if at the present moment one feels he is not up to it.”

The Baal Shem Tov taught, worry and sadness are the sources of all negative energy. One cannot truly serve G-d without Joy. The evil inclination tries to find any excuse to make a person unhappy and sad. The main goal in getting a person to fall to temptation, is not so much the sin, as the guilt and sadness that comes afterwards.  Once we identify this strategy of the evil inclination we can learn to ignore and turn away from this malicious effort made. Because the truth is, even when one fails they can always learn from the experience and get back up again, while being sad is a prescription for further failure.

By being focused on all the good in our lives, we can more easily be joyous. Every morning we wake up, right from the start of the day we should realize, G-d has faith in us. And has given us another day and another chance.

The Talmud says, if a person has a worry in his heart he should “suppress it”. The word suppress in Hebrew, can also be understood in two other ways which are methods of getting rid of the worrying thoughts. One reading is to divert his mind away from the worrying thoughts by focusing on more positive thoughts, or the solution rather than the problem, and a second interpretation, is to speak things over with a trusted friend.

Once, after Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement, the Baal Shem tov made every effort to accomplish a certain effort, but was unsuccessful. The students, happy the fasting was over, broke out in a dance, and the desired objective of their teacher was realized. The Baal Shem tov said. “What I could not bring about through my prayers and deep concentrations, the students were able to accomplish with the power of simcha – joy.”

The great Rabbis taught, even if it takes pointless activities to spark the engine of joy, as long as we are far from frivolity, many times this might break the ice and be the way to deeper and more meaningful Joy