The Art of Celebration

The festival of Sukkot is generally described as “the season of our rejoicing.” Within the holiday itself, a peculiar ceremony occurs that expresses our joy to the greatest intensity. Its name is Simchat Beit Hashoeiva and it reflects the ultimate celebration.

Sparkling waters of the Shiloach Stream outside Jerusalem were drawn in golden buckets and brought up to the altar of the Temple, where they were poured into a silver basin. Open at the bottom, the basin let the water spill into a cavity within the altar walls, which led into the underground foundations of the Temple. This ritual took place to the accompaniment of music and celebration of unprecedented proportions.

Why the poured out water? Why the unbridled joy?

True joy is rarely experienced. While most people are involved in the pursuit of happiness, real contentment seems to elude them. For satisfaction results from ambitions realized. Yet how often do our goals remain woefully unfulfilled?

King David, dogged by tragedy, was the happiest of men. What was his formula for happiness? Abandon its pursuit. Let man humbly submit to the will of G-d and declare, “My L-rd, You choose what is best for me!”
David’s master, the prophet Samuel, taught the Jewish nation the true meaning of submission, and at his command, “They drew up water and poured it out before G-d.” As the Sages elaborate, “They poured their hearts out like water and proclaimed, ‘We stand in Your presence like uncontained water - spilled out.”

Water is a substance with no form of its own. It always conforms to the shape of its container. Our life’s work is to dissolve our ego. Pour out our hearts in an amorphous, shapeless mass and plead with the Almighty, “Please give my existence shape and purpose. If I drown myself in Your being ... then, and only then, can my essence emerge.”

So how does one “pour out his heart like water?” Through tears. Thus one might detect in the waters poured out onto the Temple altar at Simchat Beit Hashoeiva a symbolic outpouring of human tears.

King David himself, because of his immortal Psalms, represents the epitome of all men pouring out their hearts. Yet, he was the same monarch who danced with uninhibited abandon in honor of the Holy Ark.
Children of Israel! Although battered, beaten and bruised - dance! For while our utter disregard for our own glory may be viewed by some as senseless and disproportionate, to G-d we have become a Divine piece of art. In this knowledge, our joy knows no bounds.