Succos 5779

Eating in the Succah on the First Night

Rabbia Doniel Neustadt discusses this issue in his Weekly Halacha series and comes out with the following conclusions:

Since there are different rulings on all of these issues, the following, then, is a summary of the majority opinion:

• If it is raining steadily and there is a reliable weather forecast for rain all night, one should make Kiddush [with shehecheyanu] and eat a k’zayis [or a k’beitzah] in the succah. No blessing over the succah is recited. The rest of the meal is eaten inside the house.

• If there is no reliable weather forecast and there is a possibility that the rain will stop [e.g., it is drizzling or it is raining on and off], it is proper to wait an hour or two for the rain to subside. The poskim agree, however, that if the delay will disturb the dignity and pleasure of the Yom Tov, or if the family is hungry and/or tired, there is no obligation to wait.

• If the rain stops while the meal is being eaten inside the house or even after the meal has finished, one is obligated to eat at least a beitzah of bread in the succah. Even if the rain stops after midnight, a beitzah of bread must be eaten in the succah. If one has already gone to bed and then the rain stops, there is no obligation to get out of bed in order to eat in the succah.

Shaking Lulav and Esrog on Shabbos

We do not shake the Lulav and Esrog on Shabbos today, but during the times of the Temple, this was done on the first day of Succos even on Shabbos. This is explained by the Rambam (Hilchos Shofar Sukkah veLulav 7:16-18):

While the Temple was standing, the lulav would be taken [in the holy place even] when the first day of Sukkot fell on the Sabbath. The same applies in other places where they were certain that this day was celebrated as a holiday in Eretz Yisrael. However, the places which were distantly removed from Jerusalem would not take the lulav on this day because of the doubt involved.

When the Temple was destroyed, the Sages forbade even the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael who had sanctified the new month to take the lulav on the Sabbath on the first day of Sukkot.

[This was instituted] because of the inhabitants of the distant settlements, who were not aware of when the new month had been declared. Thus, a uniform guideline was established, rather than having some take the lulav on the Sabbath and some not. [The guiding principle was] that the obligation [of taking the lulav] on the first day applies in all places, and there is no longer a Temple to use as a point of distinction.

At present, when everyone follows a fixed calendar, the matter remains as it was, and the lulav is not taken on the Sabbath in the outlying territories or in Eretz Yisrael even on the first day [of the festival]. [This applies] even though everyone knows the actual day of the month.

Finishing the Torah in Three Years and Simchas Torah

The Talmud (Megillah 29b) writes:

However, according to the one who said that the portion of “Command the children of Israel, and say to them, My offering” is read as Shekalim, does that portion ever occur at that time of the year? That portion usually occurs much later in the year, in the summer. The Gemara answers: Yes, it sometimes occurs that this portion is read during the beginning of Adar, for the people of the West, i.e., Eretz Yisrael, who complete the cycle of reading the Torah not in one year but in three years.

In Sefer Maasos Rabbi Benyamin (page 63) there is a mention of a similar custom in Egypt (in the 12th century):

... there are two congregations - one for those from the Land of Israel and one for those from Babylonia ... and they do not observe the same custom for reading the portions and sections of the Torah, for those from Babylonia are accustomed to read one portion every week like we do in Spain and according to our custom. [Thus], every year and year they finish the Torah. And those from the Land of Israel do not do that but they make every portion into three sections and finish the Torah in the end of the three years. However, they have a custom to come together and pray as one on the day of Simchas Torah and the day of giving the Torah (Shavous) ...

Parshas Nitzavim 5778

Nature of the Covenant

The Torah writes (Deuteronomy 29:12):

You stand this day, all of you, before the LORD your God—your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water drawer— to enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which the LORD your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; to the end that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God, as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Rashi explains (ibid 29:12):

SINCE HE MUST BE UNTO THEE A GOD, because He has promised it unto you and has sworn unto your fathers not to exchange their descendants for another nation. For this reason He binds you by these oaths not to provoke Him to anger since He, on His part, cannot dissociate Himself from you. — Thus far I have given an exposition according to the literal sense of the chapter.

and:

An Agadic explanation, however, is: Why is the section beginning with the words, “Ye are standing this day” put in juxtaposition to the curses in the previous chapter? Because when Israel heard these ninety-eight curses besides the forty-nine that are contained in Torath-Cohanim (Leviticus 26:14 ff.), their faces turned pale (they were horrified), and they exclaimed, “Who can possibly stand against these?!” Therefore Moses began to calm them: “See, you are standing today before the Lord!” — many a time have you provoked the Omnipresent to anger and yet He has not made an end to you, but you still continue in His presence (Midrash Tanchuma, Nitzavim 1).

We tend to think of a covenant like a contract - where either side can break it, but it is really more like a treaty where the sides cannot exit the treaty unless it itself includes such provisions.

Why Did G-d Exile the Jewish People?

The Torah writes (Deuteronomy 29:21-25):

And later generations will ask—the children who succeed you, and foreigners who come from distant lands and see the plagues and diseases that the LORD has inflicted upon that land, all its soil devastated by sulfur and salt, beyond sowing and producing, no grass growing in it, just like the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger—all nations will ask, “Why did the LORD do thus to this land? Wherefore that awful wrath?” They will be told, “Because they forsook the covenant that the LORD, God of their fathers, made with them when He freed them from the land of Egypt; they turned to the service of other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not experienced and whom He had not allotted to them.

Daas Zekeinim explains (ibid 29:23-24)

“what has caused the Lord to do this to this land?” If there were murderers and adulterers among the Jews, this is a world wide phenomenon and G–d has not reacted similarly against them? Why has only their land been laid waste?

and

“then they will say, etc.” even the gentiles will come to the conclusion that the G–d of the Jews had done to them was justified; they had entered into a covenant with their G–d voluntarily, and had abandoned their part of the bargain without reason. It is therefore no more than just that they had to pay the price for their treachery.

The Parshas and the Years

There is a tradition from the Vilna Gaon that each of the 5 books of the Torah correspond to 1,000 years of creation, with the last one (Devarim) corresponding to years 5000 - 6000. Each of the Parshios in Devarim (a total of ten) correspond to 100 years. Thus Parshas Ki Savo corresponds to 5600 to 5700 (1840 to 1940), and Nitzavim-Vayelech to 5700 - 5800 (1940 - 2040). There are 70 verses - 40 in Nitzavim and 30 in Vayelech, thus making every 7 verses correspond to 10 years. This means Nitzavim is roughly 5700 - 5757 (1940 - 1997), and Parshas Vayelech is 5758 - 5800 (1998 - 2040).