Sukkot: The Mitzvot of the Chag

Living Emunah By Rabbi David Ashear

With the holiday of Sukkot, Hashem has given us numerous mitzvot to perform: Sitting in the sukkah, shaking the lulav and etrog, being happy on the chag, and all of the mitzvot involved in shul and at the meals. It's important from time to time to focus on how valuable and special every mitzva is. The Gemara says at the end of days, the goyim are going to beg Hashem to give them mitzvot once they see the value of what every mitzva was really worth. In this world, it appears that money and materialism are what have value. But when Mashiach comes, we will see how false that was. Then we will fully understand how valuable every mitzva really was. There were righteous gentiles who saved hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust by bribing various Nazi officials. When the war was over and they saw how many lives they saved, they regretted not saving more. They looked at their possessions and wished they would have exchanged them for more lives. That is how everyone is going to feel when they see the true value of mitzvot. They are going to wish that they had spent more time and energy with them rather than on materialism. The Gemara at the end of Masechet Sukkah tells of a woman named Miryam Bat Bilga, who hit the Mizbeach and called it names, saying that it was eating the money of the Jewish people as they were wasting their money bringing Korbanot upon it. The Gemara then adds, she developed that terrible attitude because she learned it from her parents. Rav Chaim from Brisk explained, her parents were tzaddikim, but every time they did a mitzva, they would only talk about what the mitzva was a segula for and what benefit they were going to get out of it. For example, they would say, "We're lighting the menora now, it's a segula to have children. We're bringing a korban now. It's a segula for wealth." The children only heard that mitzvot provide material benefits. And so when they did those mitzvot and didn't see immediate benefits from them, they developed a hatred for them. It is true that some mitzvot provide side benefits in this world, but that is not the reason we do them. Our main purpose in the performance of any mitzva is to do the will of Hashem. Yes, ultimately we benefit from the mitzvot and primarily in the next world, but that is not our motivation. And we must make that clear to our children. Our greatest benefit is having the zechut to fulfill the commands of Hashem. One year, there were no kosher hadassim in Vilna, where the Gra lived. People went searching to very distant locations until they found someone who had, and they asked him if he would be willing to give his hadassim to the Vilna Gaon to fulfill the mitzvah with. The person said on one condition; that the Gaon gives him the reward in Gan Eden for the mitzva. They took the hadassim and brought them back to the Gaon and told him the condition. The Gaon was so excited to be able to do a mitzvah purely for the sake of Hashem and receive nothing in return. He understood the greatest zechut we have is to be able to do what Hashem wants. We must never lose sight of the real purpose of mitzvot. We don't do them as a segula or because they give reward. We do them because it's what Hashem wants. May Hashem give us the zechut to fulfill every mitzvah on the holiday the best way possible.