Timeless Torah

The Torah directs us to “Take...on the first day, the fruit of a beautiful tree (Esrog), branches of a date palm (Lulav), etc.” The Midrash Tanchuma is bothered by the reference of a “first day,” when in fact Sukkos occurs on the fifteenth of the month. His answer, quite cryptic, notes that this particular day can be called the ‘first,’ because it is the first day for the counting of sins.

The Tur (a seminal work of Jewish law written in Spain in the early 1300’s) elaborates: on Yom Kippur (the tenth of the month) we are absolved of our sins. In the course of the next four days we are ‘supposedly’ so busy getting ready for the festival of Sukkos, (building the Sukkah, acquiring the Four Species, cooking, etc.) that there is no time to sin. In this sense, Sukkos which is on the fifteenth of the month (and provides us a breather from the hectic pre-holiday schedule) is the “first day on which sins are counted,” for the coming year.

At this point, you must be wondering, when you became so efficient that you were able to squeeze in a sin or two over the past few days? Another query that might be percolating is why the Torah would mark the date when the New Year’s tally of sin commences? Also, is this a cause for celebration? And finally, why does the Midrash call this the first day of the reckoning of sins, as opposed to the first day sins are committed?

A chassidic perspective is offered by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchov. The Talmud (Yoma 86b) teaches that there are different types of repentance (teshuva). For one who repents out of fear (of punishment), his prior intentional sins are given the status of accidental sins. In other words, a blemish still exists; it’s just a lot smaller. However, one who does teshuva out of love for Hashem, not only are his sins completely forgiven - they are commuted to mitzvos!

At first glance, this concept seems difficult to understand. Forgiveness is something we can grasp. It’s something we often require in our own relationships. If we express remorse and promise not to repeat the offence again, we are forgiven. While Divine forgiveness may be far more complex, the process is a familiar one. But what is the logic, and indeed the justice, in converting sins into mitzvos? Does it make sense to increase the sinner’s reward due to his having sinned!

When one repents out of fear of punishment, all the individual wishes is to bury his sins and pretend that they never happened. Teshuva borne by love has nothing to do with sweeping the dirt under the carpet, or even giving the dirt a really good scrubbing. Love motivates the penitent to revisit his sins - time and time again - not to agonize over them, but rather to examine whether the extent of his desire for closeness to Hashem, parallels his earlier misdirected passions. Here, one’s sins are not changed into mitzvos free of charge. Rather, by analyzing our fervor for sin we realize how ravenous our appetite for holiness must be.

This is why, “Where the penitent stand, even the most righteous can’t stand.” (Berachos 34b)
From Rosh Hashana until after Yom Kippur, the teshuva process is generally undertaken out of fear of Heavenly Judgment. Our repentance driven by fear does not transform our pitfalls into merits. But when “the time of our joy” arrives, we are able to strive for the higher level of teshuva through love, through which sins become credits. This, according to Rabbi Levi Yitzchok, is why Sukkos is “the first day that sins are counted,” i.e. it is the first time that we go back and ‘count’ our sins that we previously swept under the rug. We now re-examine how much joy to put into our mitzvohs. This is such a happy occasion, we actually made this day the Festival of Succos.

The Ba’al Shem Tov uses this concept to explain the verse, “In those days (of Moshiach)...says Hashem, the iniquity of Israel will be sought, but it will not be there, the transgressions of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will forgive those whom I allow to remain.”(Jeremiah 50:20) If Israel’s sins will be forgiven, he asks, why go looking for them? He answers: To convert them into mitzvos!

Yet this begs the question: If they’re being sought in order to convert them into mitzvos, why does Scripture state that they won’t be found?

King Solomon exhorts us to,“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before...those years arrive of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’” (Koheles 12:1) The Ramban (Devarim 30:6) writes that the “Days of no pleasure” refer to the era of Moshiach when worldly pleasures will no longer entice us, and keeping Torah will become easy and matter-of-fact. The verse therefore warns us that we should remember our Creator in “the days of our youth” - before Moshiach, for now we have the opportunity to perfect ourselves. Once Redemption arrives, free-will will lapse, and the ability to do teshuva will be lost forever.
Perhaps this is what the Ba’al Shem Tov meant.

In the future when we no longer have to contend with the yetzer hara (evil inclination), we would very much like to reflect on our previous petty proclivities, and recalibrate how much our cravings for sanctity ought to be. But we will have missed our chance. Once the challenge is gone, there is no longer a possibility of teshuva, and the opportunity to mitzvah-rize our prior failings will cease to exist.

So while we all anxiously await Moshiach’s arrival, this Sukkos it’s important to remember our galus opportunity of teshuva with love. It’s hard to believe, but then we will miss the need to buffer our hearts against the desires that plagued us in the past. And we will miss it.