ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Erev Sukkos. Nothing prepared, as always — and then one comment in the room twisted the whole thing in a different direction.Start with where we actually are. From Rosh Chodesh Elul to Simchas Torah there is one stretch with no Yom Tov in it at all: the four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos. Four days with nothing to hold on to. And they decide everything.Elul is HaMelech basadeh, the King in the field, campaigning for His own inauguration. Rosh Hashana is the coronation — v'yitnu lecha kesser meluchah — and the Rebbe says the crown is made of every kind of diamond and every kind of sapphire, which is every kind of Yid. The inauguration is live, and it happens in Uman. You can watch it from Boro Park. But you were invited to sit on the dais.Then Yom Kippur. And then — nothing.• Motzaei Yom Kippur, the urges come booming back. Every one of them. You just came through the holiest hours of the year and the yetzer hara is waiting at the door, and the four days with no Yom Tov in them are exactly where he does his work• Hamtana — the waiting. What the Rebbe calls the real teshuvah. You apologized and she said yes and her face has not changed yet. What do most of us do? Forget about it, I'm not saying it again. But if you wait it out, and face the humiliation, and do not run — the light comes back, and she comes back to you the way she came the first time• Elul through Yom Kippur is teshuva mi'yirah — I am scared, I want a good year, parnassa, nachas. Sukkos is teshuva me'ahava. The four days are the bridge, and there is no other way across• Rav Aharon on the road to Breslov, and what Reb Nosson said to him: even if the Rebbe himself told me not to come, I would not listen, because I know his real ratzon is that I should come• The three things Reb Nosson had clear from the Rebbe: Shulchan Aruch every day. Hisbodedus every day. And the third• Hisbodedus in bed, before the day starts. Negelvasser, back under the blanket, no phone, nothing has happened yet, nothing has tainted you, your neshama just came back from Hashem. Mateisi b'dimasi arsi — I soaked my bed with my tears• L'fareish kol libo — not help me and save me, but what am I feeling right now? And if you have to think about it, that is already the answer. You are not thinking your feelings, you are thinking your thinking• Which is why a man lives reactive, reactive, reactive — and even his proactive thinking is business, wife, children, tasks, transactions. What about me?• "She is always wrong with the story, and she is always right with the feeling." She is the scanner. She only knows one thing — are you providing, physically, emotionally, spiritually — and when you are not, beep, beep, beep. She finds some small thing you did not do and goes to pieces over it, and you are standing there saying what did I do? And you know exactly what you did. She does not. But she feels it• The wife as the Shechinah, the mekabel, the feminine — and kudsha brich hu as what is supposed to be coming toward her• The yetzer hara walked into the beis medrash. You can be sitting in the beis medrash and be in She'ol Tachtis with a scroll and the press of a button — and with AI it is worse. So what is your remedy? What are you actually going to do?• B'hai sefer haZohar yifkun min galusa — the answer is pnimiyus haTorah, because pnimiyus haTorah speaks to your challenges. It understands them• And the sicha: ve'achshav yesh nachal nove'a shemetaher mikol haksamim — now there is a flowing spring that cleanses us from every stain• Then the sukkah. Tzila d'mehemnusa — out of the house we sinned in, into neutral territory, to get to know each other again. The lulav and esrog as armor. And Simchas Torah, where we marry the Torah from Bereishis, from the beginning, like the first timeOne more day. One more day, Hashem. Get me through this one more day.#Sukkos #Sukkot #ErevSukkos #Teshuva #TeshuvaMeAhava #YomKippur #SimchasTorah #Hisbodedus #Hitbodedut #Breslov #Breslev #RebNachman #RebbeNachman #RebNoson #ZoharHakadosh #Zohar #RashbiRavShimon #PnimiyusHaTorah #NachalNovea #Shechinah #Marriage #Relationships #Emuna #Emunah #Uman #UmanRoshHashana #Tzaddik #SelfAwareness #Awareness #Feelings #Elul #HaMelechBasadeh #Lulav #Esrog #TzilaDemehemnusa #TorahShiur #Shiur #JewishSpirituality #JewishGrowth #BaalTeshuva #Yiddishkeit #EilechVanaseh
