Rabbi Anderson's Divrei Torah

Shabbat shalom! My husband and I have an ongoing joke about the worst sermon topics for aufrufs – it started when a former rabbi of ours paired a joyous aufruf with a not-at-all-joyous sermon on human trafficking – and so with Daniel and Alissa’s aufruf happening today, I felt a certain obligation to come up with a cheerful sermon topic. Fortunately, our Torah portion offers many variations on the theme of simcha, which we usually translate as something like “joy” or “happiness.” Moses tells the Israelites that they are required to bring their offerings to God’s central place, u’smachtem lifnei Hashem Elokeichem, “and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God with your sons and daughters and your male and female slaves and the Levite in your settlements” (12:12). A few verses later, Moses explains that as the Israelite households consume their offerings, they will rejoice, again, before God: v’samachta lifnei Hashem Elokekha b’chol mishlach yadecha, or as Etz Hayim translates it, “happy before the Lord your God in all your undertakings” (12:18). What is this simcha that comes with consuming an offering together with family? The literalist twelfth-century commentator Joseph Bechor Shor explained that it was simply the joy of eating meat. But Bechor Shor added a second explanation: “from God, joy comes to you, and you will rejoice in God’s holy courts before God.”[1] There seems to be something intrinsically joyous about being in God’s presence, at a holy place, with other Israelites, and especially with one’s family.

This reading of simcha is only strengthened by the later part of the parsha, which clarifies that the pilgrimage festivals are also a time of joy, but adds to the list of those rejoicing: “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite in your communities, and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your midst” (16:11). The same list of co-rejoicers comes up a few verses later, when the Israelites are commanded v’samachta b’chagecha, “you shall rejoice in your festival” (16:14). While the Levite was mentioned in the earlier passages – specifically because the Levites do not have their own land inheritance – the stranger or sojourner, the orphan, and the widow are also individuals without their own land. Some aspect of the simcha of the Festivals must lie in sharing food and happiness with people outside your family, people who really need the assistance. The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks argues that simcha is not just joy, but the happiness that comes from knowing you are living an ethical life: “What [simcha] really means is the happiness we share, or better still, the happiness we make by sharing.”[2] As Rabbi Sacks points out, all the mentions of simcha in this parsha are about “a communal group experience of joy,” and our festivals and our feasts – not to mention our kiddushes – are made happier by including in our community the people who might not otherwise be able to afford their own simcha.

Still, the simcha of family and the simcha of inclusion doesn’t cover all the mentions of simcha in this parsha. If you properly celebrate Sukkot with your family, the Levite, stranger, widow, and orphan, the Torah promises, “the Lord your God will bless all your crops and all your undertakings, and you shall have nothing but joy” – v’hayeeta ach sameach (16:15). From here, the rabbinic tradition derives that there is a mitzvah of joy on all the Festivals but a special mitzvah of joy on the festival of Sukkot, not only during the day but also in the evenings.[3] The problem is that it seems impossible to imagine a group of people experiencing ach sameach, nothing but joy, in anything like a literal sense. One rabbinic suggestion is that Sukkot was an uncomplicatedly happy time because everyone’s harvests were finally in, and they could finally relax, unlike on the earlier pilgrimage festivals, when they still had to get back and tend their crops.[4] But – speaking as a person who’s very bad at relaxing – that seems implausible: even if we imagine Sukkot as a kind of proto-Disney cruise vacation, there are always hiccups in our travel and vacation plans. Still another rabbinic idea is that simcha means everyone gets appropriate gifts, which is to say meat and wine for men, new clothes and jewelry for women, and nuts and candy for children.[5] Leaving aside the many questions this raises about what women eat and how everyone else gets dressed, I have personally given plenty of gifts – especially to children – that provided about thirty seconds of joy, which is not exactly ach sameach. More modern commentators[6] think ach sameach implies that no intrusive sad thoughts will interfere with the festival’s joy, but that doesn’t mesh with reality either. There will probably be a sad thought or two in all of our happiest moments, and a sad guest or two at even the happiest occasion.

Rav Nachman of Breslav, writing in the early nineteenth century, explains that there are too many different kinds of joy to expect everyone to feel the same simcha, even on a joyous occasion. He uses a wedding as his example:

When you come to a wedding feast, some people are happy because of the good food there is to eat, meat and fish and all kinds of good things. Somebody else is happy because of the musicians. Other people around them may be happy for other reasons. Then there are those who are truly happy about the wedding itself. The parents of the bride and groom are paying no attention to the food and drink; they're happy because their children are getting married. And so there are present all sorts of happiness. But no one is rejoicing in all those pleasures together; they're just taking them in one after another.[7]

Of course, Rav Nachman says, there will also be a few sad people at the wedding, perhaps the couple’s jealous exes! But he insists that truly complete and great joy, shleimut v’gadlut hasimcha, can only come from connecting different types of joy and understanding that they come from a common source, so that everyone is rejoicing together, even if the cause of each person’s joy is slightly different. For Rav Nachman, the common source of joy is ultimately God; for us, it might manifest as deeply felt human relationships, or social justice, or love (all of which are sometimes synonymous with the experience of the divine). But in all cases, there is still a communally diverse dimension to complete joy, ach sameach.

Putting all the pieces together, we have the simcha that comes from good food. We have the simcha that comes from celebrating with our family – whether biological or chosen. We have the simcha that comes from living ethically and sustaining those who need it. And we have the simcha that comes from knowing those around us are happy as well, perhaps for not exactly the same reasons we are, but that all our joy comes from the same place. Joy is not simple, our tradition teaches: it’s complicated. But it’s worth seeking, and it’s worth celebrating when we get it. Today, a day of Shabbat simcha and also pre-wedding simcha, I want to wish Daniel and Alissa – and all of us celebrating together with them – ach sameach, nothing but joy.