In Parshat Re’eh, immediately after learning of the blessing and the curse in store for those who uphold or defy Hashem’s law, and being told to anticipate the conquest of the land, we are instructed to celebrate in the place that will be designated as the sanctuary for Hashem. This theme of celebration, or joy, returns to anchor our parsha at its conclusion in the section that is commonly read for the second days of our holidays that are observed outside the Land of Israel. We are commanded to rejoice on Shavuot and on Sukkot; on Sukkot we are commanded twice to rejoice, which our Sages have taught means we should be especially joyous on Sukkot. But what is this joy, and why is it emphasized particularly on Sukkot?
The Shela HaKadosh learns from the order of the words in the pasuk commanding us to be joyous on Shavuot (Devarim 16:11) that we have a responsibility to spread our joy to others. That means that not only does the Torah command us to feel joy ourselves, but in our interactions, we should endeavor to cause joy to those who are close to us. First, we bring joy to our family and the members of our household, then we move beyond this inner circle and inspire as much joy in the rest of Israel as we can manage.
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch found the essence of the joy of the holidays in this unification of personal and communal celebration. He sees a hierarchy of joy in the holidays as they progress from Pesach to Simchat Torah, and he connects this to the manner in which our celebration increasingly connects to the common good. On Pesach there is no explicit command to rejoice, although the Sages learned this from the first of the two commands to rejoice on Sukkot, concluding that every holiday entails a commandment to be happy. However, Pesach is a personal and familial celebration above all; we observe it in small groups where we focus on members of our household or our closest friends. With Shavuot we begin to bring in the harvest and the first fruits and, when the year is bounteous with much wealth to be shared, then the whole community rejoices in the abundance and also the resolution of our fears of scarcity.
By Sukkot, we are so content and sated with our harvest that we use the extra fruits to decorate our sukkot and crown the sukkah itself with the detritus of our winnowing. On Sukkot the individual is able to truly lose himself in the collective of all Israel, celebrating together without fear or misapprehension about the coming year. For Rav Hirsch, this is the true embodiment of the national spirit of Israel – feeling responsible for one another, meeting the needs of one another, and celebrating together in the joy of the community experienced as a community.
The Ben Ish Chai emphasizes the numerous times the Torah commands us to be joyous on our holidays and in particular the lengthy passage in which we are commanded twice to rejoice on Sukkot (Devarim 16:14-15). The Ben Ish Chai also sees in this celebration the apogee of our communal spiritual experience. He points out that the Torah goes out of its way to command us to rejoice on our holidays because it’s natural for a person to feel sorrow and consternation as the holiday approaches. He might worry about his lost income during the many days of work he misses for the holiday, or he might worry about the sheer expense of shopping and preparing for a week-long celebration. However, we have faith in Hashem that we will want for nothing and that all our brachot will increase to the extent that is necessary to enable us to truly enjoy our holiday. The Torah commands us to rejoice on the holiday (twice!) because it is assuring us that we need not worry about the means to observe the holiday, for Hashem will provide these.
We see from the repetition of the command to rejoice, and the wording of the aforementioned pasuk concerning Sukkot, that Hashem is particularly focused on this notion of joy through celebration, and that He wants to impress upon us how central joy is to our service of Him. Indeed, when the word first occurs at the beginning of the parsha (Devarim 12:12), it stands in for the general principle of serving Hashem in His sanctuary. We learn from our parsha that joy is another word for service of Hashem, and that it is a mitzvah to serve Hashem joyously.
