Seven Nights of Nonstop Dancing

Moshe was talking to his psychiatrist. "I had a weird dream recently," he says. "I saw my mother but then I noticed she had your face. I found this so worrying that I immediately awoke and couldn't get back to sleep. I just stayed there thinking about it until 7 am. I got up, made myself a slice of toast and some coffee, and came here. Can you please help me explain the meaning of my dream?"

The psychiatrist responded, "One slice of toast and coffee? Do you call that breakfast for a growing boy?"

It was a glorious sight to behold.

For as long as the Holy Temple in Jerusalem stood, every year during the festival of Sukkot, the celebration accompanying one ritual would bring raucous celebration to the entire city of Jerusalem for seven nights straight. As night descended upon the city, throngs of people would ascend the Temple Mount, to participate in these festivities. Enormous torches of fire, perched on columns several stories high, lit up the Courtyard and the entire Jerusalem, as dancing, music, and displays of acrobatics would continue into the wee hours of the morning.

The Talmud describes how the entire city of Jerusalem glowed with light during this time thanks to golden candlesticks more than 70 feet high filled with golden bowls of oil. The greatest Sages would participate joyfully in the celebration, performing the most extraordinary feats. Some of them would bear burning torches in their hands while singing Psalms and other praises of G-d. The Levites would play musical instruments, including harps, lyres, cymbals, and trumpets. The great Sage Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel rejoiced by juggling eight lighted torches; he would also kiss the ground as he did headstands, a feat which no one else could do.

Sounds like a great party. The Talmud thought so and declared: “Whoever did not witness these celebrations has never in his life seen true joy.” 

One of the greatest sages of the day, a Levite who sang in the final years of the Second Holy Temple, was Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya.

because they would doze on each other’s shoulders.

Rabbi Yehoshua related the spiritually ecstatic schedule of Sukkot during the days of the Second Holy Temple, depriving them of sleep. At sunrise, the morning offering was offered in the Holy Temple from there they went to pray the morning prayers. Then it was time to return to the Temple for the special additional Musaf offering in honor of the holiday, then back to the Musaf holiday prayer in synagogue. Now to learn the Torah, so they proceeded to the study hall. From there they went to eat and drink. By now, it was afternoon, they went to pray Mincha, and from there, back to the Temple for the daily afternoon offering. From there, they did an all-nighter, singing and dancing in the celebration of Simchat Beit Hashoavah.

Reb Yehoshua did not mention every detail of the schedule. Presumably, everyone had some other duties to attend to during the day. People take care of their physical needs, family obligations, livestock, etc. Reb Yehoshua mentioned the sacred and spiritual duties of the day: the offerings in the Temple, the prayers, the study of the Torah, and the all-night dancing.

Yet there is one item on the schedule that stands out: “From there, to eating and drinking.” And he inserts it right in the middle: from the Temple to the prayers, to the study of Torah, to the meal, and then back to prayers.

One would think that in the elated atmosphere of the holidays and talking about the greatest spiritual giants of the day, the eating and drinking would be done in passing. Perhaps everyone would go home to catch a bite, but that would not have the same value and significance as the offerings in the Temple, the prayers, and the Torah study. Yet, Reb Yehoshua included it, in a seamless flow, in the list: From the study hall to the food, to the prayers. It seems even a bit disrespectful how the mundane act of eating and drinking is given the same prominence by this great sage as the sacred, spiritual acts of the day.

Reb Yehoshua, it seems, is telling us something: The mealtime experience was an integral part and converged seamlessly with the rest of the day and night.

The Rebbe presented a powerful explanation. With these additional words, Reb Yehoshua was not just telling us about the packed schedule of the day but offering a lens on how to view eating, drinking, and material pursuits, from a Torah perspective.

Generally, there are three approaches to the role of materialism in a person’s life: the earthly approach, the heavenly approach, and the hybrid.

The earthly approach maintains that life is all about physical comforts and pleasures. In the slogan quoted by the prophet Isaiah: “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”

The opposite approach cultivates asceticism, austerity, frugality, and radical simplicity. I may engage in the physical as much as I need to live, but I realize that ascending a mountain of transcendental bliss beats the temporary comforts of the body.

Then there is the hybrid. I pay my dues to G-d, but afterward, I can chill, party, and have a good time. I want the best of both worlds; give me the cake and let me eat it too. Many of us live in this dual world. I render to G-d what I need to, but then let loose.

The Rebbe said, that we discover the ultimate vision of Judaism—the theology and experience of oneness. “G-d is One, Hashem Echad,” means that reality in its truest core, is not dichotomized; no part of it needs to be dismissed or amputated. Oneness pervades the physical as much as the spiritual, the body as much as the soul. There is no true rift between heaven and earth, my body and my spirit; both are different expressions of infinite singularity.

This is what Reb Yehoshua was saying. The joy of Sukkot did not pervade only the prayers, the Torah study, the Temple offerings, and the ritual celebrations; even the eating and the drinking, the mundane daily acts of consuming energy, was part of the rapture and exuberance of the festival. The body and the physical world are no less Divine and holy than the soul and the spiritual consciousness. The oneness of G-d encompasses all. If your body needs something, if your family needs something, if your mental health needs something, it’s not an escape from G-d; it is part of your Divine service.

The earthly approach running to indulgence, the heavenly approach escaping the material, and the hybrid of trying to “dance at two weddings,” are based on our misconception we are destined to be dual creatures, with split personalities. But that is a superficial reading of the self and the world. My body and my soul are both Divine Temples, vehicles for Divine revelation, conduits for the universal energy that flows through them every moment.

Reb Yehoshua is teaching that this approach got it all wrong. G-d wants you to live your optimal life, on every level, and all fronts. If there is something my body needs to nurture itself, if there is something my mind needs to relax, if there is something I need to be able to be fully present and aligned—that is part of serving G-d, just like I’m sitting in shul and praying on Yom Kippur. The physical and the spiritual are all one.

In Judaism there is no guilt in enjoying life, if I am enjoying life, not escaping life, not escaping my relationships.

When the Torah cautions us not to engage in indulgence and gluttony, it’s not out of hate of the body; it is out of love and respect for the body. Don't exercise because you hate your body, but because you love it, cherish it. It is the vehicle—and the only vehicle—through which G-d’s light inside of you can shine. It’s a Holy Temple, and like the Temple in Jerusalem, must be guarded and protected.

Taking care of your body, in a healthy and meaningful way, is taking care of your soul. And taking care of your soul is taking care of your body. Every moment of the day unified heaven and earth.

This is what Reb Yehoshua taught: “When we would rejoice in the Celebration of the Drawing of the Water, our eyes saw no sleep. How so? In the first hour of the day, the daily morning offering was offered… From there, to the study hall; to eating and drinking.” There is a seamless flow in life.

One day, it was revealed to Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov that he had merited a great soul to be his "roommate" and partner in the World to Come. The identity of his roommate was also revealed to him as being the soul of a certain homesteader in a backwoods village many miles from his home.

Desiring to learn more about his destined partner, the Baal Shem Tov journeyed to the village and asked after the person whose name he had been given. The man turned out to be a simple and ignorant Jew—it was doubted that he was literate enough to read the prayers properly or master a few verses of Chumash. A few villagers described him as a "boor" and a "glutton."

"I am a simple, uneducated Jew," said the man, "who earns his living off the land. There is nothing special about me." Rabbi Israel rented a room in the man's house and observed his behavior for several days. Indeed, his destined roommate seemed a very ordinary man, with the mannerisms of a simple peasant. Never did he see him with an open book beyond a terse dispatch of the requisite daily prayers, nor did he discern any exemplary behavior in any area. The only thing remarkable about him was his diet: the man consumed a vast quantity of food. At each meal, he would down what the average man ate in a week. His girth bore ample witness to his eating habits: physically, at least, he was a prodigious man.

Finally, Rabbi Israel asked him directly. "I have it from a reliable source," he said to his host, "that you are held in great esteem in Heaven. Perhaps you can tell me why this is so?"

"I am a simple, uneducated Jew," said the man, "who earns his living off the land. There is nothing special about me. Maybe you should check your sources again."

"Have you ever, in your life, done a great deed?" persisted Rabbi Israel. "Perhaps you once saved a life, or gave a great sum to charity, or made some other great sacrifice for the Almighty's sake?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," said the man, "but you have the wrong fellow. I've never done anything of that sort—I'm just an illiterate farmer. The only extraordinary thing about me is the amount of food I consume. No one eats as much as I do."

"Why do you eat so much?" asked Rabbi Israel.

"That's because of my father," said the man.

"Your father?"

"My father died for the sanctification of G‑d's name. At a pogrom many years ago, he was dragged from his bed and given the choice of baptism or death. When he refused to kiss the cross, they set the barn on fire and threw him into the flames. But my father was a wisp of a man—all skin and bones. In minutes, he was completely consumed by the fire—there was scarcely anything to burn. So, I resolved that, with me, it would never be that way. If it should ever happen that I must burn for the sake of G‑d's holy name, I will burn, burn, and burn! Boy, will I burn!"

And, maybe, there is a deeper meaning to the story. The gluttonous Jew was saying, "You found it easy to burn my father. He went up immediately in a poof of smoke as if he had never existed. I'm going to make it HARD to burn a Jew." The glutton was expressing his DEFIANCE of the antisemitic Jew-hating world in the only way he knew how. The storyteller is saying it's the highest level of holiness to become the kind of Jew that the world finds to be too difficult to destroy. Physical strength and power for the Jewish people is holy.

Happy Sukkot – Chag Sameach,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky