Succos - 5776

Succos - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

You shall dwell in booths for seven days, every citizen of Israel is to dwell in

booths. [Vayikra 23:42]

We all know that we are to live in the succah for a week. In Mishnah Succah

[2:9] we read, "All seven days a man is obligated to make his succah his

permanent home, and to make his house his temporary home." We often go far

out of our way to make both our succah and our "other home" beautiful and

impressive. There is certainly nothing wrong with this in general, in fact we

also know that we should do every mitzvah in the most beautiful manner we

can. But there is a limit.

Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov, in a piece entitled "Enhancing the Mitzvah Rather Than

Oneself", explains this limit. He uses the esrog as his example, but the theory

applies to all the mitzvos of Succos, and even all mitzvos in general. His words

tell the story:

Since the mitzvah of the Four Species is so greatly cherished by the Jewish people,

and since its reward is great in this world and the next, it is fitting that one be especially

careful to perform the mitzvah in the proper manner. He should make sure that he is

fulfilling the mitzvah for the sake of G-d, and that he has no intent to use the mitzvah

as a means of glorifying himself in front of others. He should not say, or think, "See

how much more beautiful my esrog is than yours." How is it possible to take a mitzvah

which is full of love of G-d and use it as a means to enhance one's own prestige!

One who does so exchanges an enduring world for a transient one. He forsakes G-d's

glory for his own imaginary glory and thereby comes to conceit and arrogance. Of

him the Torah says: "One who is haughty is abhorred by G-d" [Mishlei 16:5]. Let his

esrog and lulav be less beautiful, but let his intention be for the sake of the mitzvah alone.

If a mitzvah is fulfilled in a manner which does not lead one to anger or false pride, or

any other negative character trait, but only to joy and other positive traits, then it is

performed with proper intent. When a mitzvah is fulfilled properly, it leads to the fulfillment

of other mitzvos and to Divine reward. A mitzvah fulfilled through a transgression is not a

mitzvah at all, but a sin. It condemns the one who performs it and leads to other

transgressions, until the person ultimately loses his world. One should therefore exercise

great care not to commit any wrong when performing the mitzvah, e.g., lie, cheat, borrow

money which one knows he cannot repay, cause injury to another, and surely not steal.

What Rav Kitov is explaining is that not only do we need to keep in mind the real purpose

of our performance of mitzvos in order to be credited with them, but we must also guard

against giving them our own purposes, lest we find the mitzvah turned into a sin.

If we do a mitzvah by rote, without thinking about the fact that we do it because G-d

commanded it, then we are coming dangerously close to the line of doing it for our own

purposes instead of those of G-d. Throwing money at a mitzvah, without understanding

what the real purpose is, accomplishes nothing. Stop briefly before doing a mitzvah, to

remember why we do it. That is how to truly beautify a mitzvah.