Shabbos Chol HaMoed Succos - 5776

Shabbos Chol HaMoed Succos - 5776

Rabbi Hal Miller

I said of laughter, it is mad, and of joy, what does it accomplish? [Koheles 2:2]

Succos is the holiday of joy. We read repeatedly in our prayers the words "zman

simchaseinu", or "time of our joy". But we also read King Solomon's scroll Koheles

(Ecclesiastes), which is, more than anything, a story of sadness. How do we understand

the contradiction?

Our answer comes in the Gemora Shabbos [30b]. Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov explains it

in an article entitled, "Spiritual Joy of the Mitzvah rather than Physical Joy". He says,

"When one eats the festive meal, he should also provide for the stranger, the

orphan, and the widow, as well as other unfortunate poor people. One who

closes his doors on the Festival, and eats and drinks with his wife and

children alone, sharing nothing with the poor and downtrodden, he is not

rejoicing in the mitzvah of Yom Tov but merely in filling his stomach."

From this we can view 'joy' as having multiple meanings. Certainly, there is a physical

component, which Rav Kitov calls "filling his stomach", but there is also the spiritual

version, which he assigns to providing for others who have a physical need.

Koheles has told us that laughter is madness, and associates it with joy being

meaningless. Metzudas Zion translates laughter as melancholy, which seems to run

counter to what we might expect from the language. Rashi interprets this particular type

of laughter as "mingled with cries and sighs", again implying that there are multiple

ways to understand the meaning.

Our Gemara sorts it all out, citing a handful of verses from Koheles. It compares

our verse, "I said of laughter, it is mad", to "Anger is better than laughter" [7:3], and

explains, "better the anger that the Holy One, blessed is He, expresses towards the

righteous in this world, than the laughter that the Holy One, blessed is He, laughs upon

the wicked in this world."

The Gemora continues by comparing our verse, "And of joy, what does it accomplish" with

"So I have praised joy" [8:15]. It says, "'So I have praised joy', the joy associated with

a mitzvah. 'And of joy', I have said, what does it accomplish?, this is the joy that is not

associated with a mitzvah."

In Koheles, King Solomon spoke of what he defined as the 'wrong kind' of joy, one of

sadness. We read this scroll on Succos to remind ourselves that the command to be

joyous doesn't mean we should let loose of our moral compass, the Torah, but to be

joyful IN the Torah itself.