Rabbi Nissen David Kiwak:
The Rebbe teaches (Likutey Moharan lesson 66): “…
because without desire it is impossible to do
anything … The main extent of a person's desire is
created by the obstacles that they (heaven) place
before him. Since when a Jew needs to do
something necessary for his Judaism, parƟcularly
when he needs to do something that his enƟre
Judaism depends on - like travelling to a true Tzaddik
- they place an obstacle before him.
This obstacle is for the purpose of desire, so that
because of it he will have a greater desire to do that
thing, since through the obstacle that keeps a person
from that thing, his desire is greatly increased. For
example, when one shows a child something
desirable to him, and then immediately snatches it
away and hides it from him, he will then chase aŌer
the person, begging for the object, desiring it
tremendously. … So too, they (heaven) place
obstacles before a person to prevent him from doing
the thing that he needs to, so that he should desire it
more…”
The Avodah of the month of Tishrei:
The month of Tishrei is the main Ɵme for the
development of holy yearning within the heart. Rosh
Hashanah is the Ɵme for recognizing the truth of
Hashem's sovereignty. With this, the heart is
aroused with desire and yearning to serve Hashem,
and so a person strengthens himself from day to day
throughout the Aseres Yemei Teshuva with the holy
desire to crown Hashem as King, unƟl on Yom Kippur
one merits the peak of desire and is consumed with
yearning for Hashem with a complete nullificaƟon of
any other will or desire. So too, it is revealed that
Hashem is a merciful King who forgives, pardons and
desires the Jewish people.
Yet this is sƟll not the complete perfecƟon, since
aŌer the holy acƟviƟes of Yom Kippur there are the
four days between Yom Kippur and Succos in which
we must go out to the market place to take care of
all the necessary preparaƟons for the Chag, like
building the succah and purchasing the Arbah Minim
etc..
Chazal expounded on the verse: “and you shall take
for yourselves on the first day…” - first for the
accounƟng of sins. Chazal's intenƟon is to tell us that
during those preceding four days the Jewish people
are totally involved in mitzvos and all the ‘mundane’
acƟviƟes in which they involve themselves, are not a
spiritual declinaƟon and are not sins, G-d forbid.
Quite the opposite, they are what causes one to
strengthen himself with greater desire. Since aŌer
one merits the complete yearning of Yom Kippur, he
is immediately shown his true level so that he can
idenƟfy all the things that cause his desire to
dissipate during the rest of the year, for in truth, if a
person were to stay with the holiness of Yom Kippur
with nothing but Torah and tefillah and would not
‘fall’ into worldly acƟviƟes and the challenges they
present, he would never truly know the desire and
yearning that the heart must feel for Hashem. And if
so, how could one be commanded to perform the
mitzvos with desire, for what could he do when his
heart is closed and is not aroused with yearning and
desire.
Rather, through the power of the avodah of Yom
Kippur one can understand that he must strengthen
himself during these days of building the Sukkah and
searching for the Arbah Minim etc, to perform these
mitzvos amidst a powerful yearning for Hashem,
thereby using these obstacles for their true purpose
- as a means for developing an even stronger desire.
Through doing this, one can establish a foundaƟon
for the enƟre year - how to not allow the desire and
passion of one's heart to be ‘cooled off’ by the more
mundane acƟviƟes of each day.
The Holy Sukkah:
This power allows for the full revelaƟon of the
kedusha of Chag Ha'Sukkos - the perfecƟon of holy
desire. This is the meaning of the verse: “…and His
right hand will embrace me” - that one should merit
to feel Hashem's loving embrace, that he ‘chose us
from all the naƟons’, took us out of Mitzrayim and
surrounded us with the clouds of glory, and now I
have the merit to sit before Hashem in such an
awesomely holy place together with the holy
Ushpizin to be consumed in Hashem's infinite love,
all of which is the primary desire of every pure heart.
During Sukkos the actual yearning for Hashem is
revealed and the joy we take in Him even in the
more external things, for the main miztvos of the
Sukkah are none other than eaƟng and sleeping. This
is why we leave our homes, in order to pracƟce
aƩaching ourselves to Hashem with desire and
yearning even when we are ‘outside’, to merit to
always pray and learn with excitement and yearning
and to find the way to remember that holy yearning
when we are involved in anything else.
With this we can understand the concept of
receiving the Ushpizin in the Sukkah, since the
Shiv'ah Ro'im (Seven Shepherds) are an aspect of the
arousal of desire for Hashem and they provide us
with an insight into what true yearning is and how
powerful it can be. They were the revelaƟon of holy
yearning in the world and they gave themselves over
enƟrely to revealing Hashem's glory, even when they
were completely alone. They come to our Sukkah's
to encourage us and remind us that we are not
alone.
This is the enƟre avodah of the days Sukkos, to come
closer to true desire for holiness from any and every
situaƟon, through an influx of internalized
knowledge of the greatness of every mitzvah, which
arouses the heart with holy desire. Siƫng outside
within the walls of the Sukkah can arouse
tremendous yearning - it is intended to provoke a
person to depict what it was like for the Jews when
they were in the desert surrounded by the clouds of
glory and what they felt. Then we can feel it too.
Advice for the building of holy desire:
The nature of a person is that in every mundane
acƟvity and during all the necessary dealings of this
world, he becomes discouraged and his desire and
yearning for Hashem lessens since he feels that he
would at that Ɵme prefer to be involved in Torah
and tefillah etc. and since he is now forced to deal
with worldly maƩers he loses his yearning for
Hashem or falls into sadness and depression and
automaƟcally begins to give up hope of truly serving
Hashem. Even though the teachings of the
Tzaddikim reveal that one can serve Hashem
through everything, even in the physical world, a
person nevertheless finds himself not knowing
exactly what a simple person like himself can do in
each and every situaƟon to conƟnue serving
Hashem. Therefore we must search in the Rebbe's
teachings to find some advice as to how we can
merit to this.
In the teaching of 'Ayeh' (Likutey Tinyana 12) the
Rebbe reveals the secret to developing one's desire
from even the lowliest places.
When a person sees that he is not managing to hold
up and begins to forget his holy yearnings, and
someƟmes even begins, God forbid, to fall into very
filthy places, cannot seem to find a way out and
begins to feel like he has no connecƟon to holiness
whatsoever, then his main recƟficaƟon is that he
should ask of Hashem: ‘Ayeh mekom
ke'vodo’ (‘where is the place of His glory?’). Meaning
that he should enter himself into pure and simple
faith, without any feeling or understanding at all,
that Hashem's G-dliness is surely there and that he
certainly does have a connecƟon to all aspects of
holiness. And the fact that one don’t see or feel the
holiness of Shabbos, tefillah etc is only because one
is making a fundamental mistake in the way he is
looking at things, because surely there is another
truth here that one does not see. With this a person
begins to cry out, search and request of Hashem:
‘where is the true holiness!!? Where is His Glory!!?’
This is the beginning of the development of yearning
for Hashem, because the first step is to believe with
absolute faith that Hashem is orchestraƟng
awesome things right here, a completely different
scenario than the one I see and feel. AutomaƟcally
one then begins to search and ask: ‘where is it!’
Therefore it has to happen that a person will fall to
dark places where he cannot see any spark of light.
All of this is so that he will begin to build-up his holy
yearning anew, from the absolute beginning. This is
only possible in a place where he sees no light
whatsoever and arouses himself to the Emunah that
there certainly is G-dliness there, for there is no
place empty of Hashem, ‘Ayeh!?’… □