A Sermon for Simchat Torah

              Our Torah reading for tomorrow morning comes from parhsat re’eh. We begin with 14:22 and continue to the end of the parshah. We are taught the laws of tithing and the requirements of the shmita year as well as the outline of the three pilgrimage festivals: Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. This reading is paired with the reading of the book of Ecclesiastes.

              At first glance, this seems completely disjointed. One reading is focused on a disparate collection of laws, and the other seems to be nearly existentialist in its questioning of the meaning of life. But a close reading of Ecclesiastes shows the connection.

              Over and over, Ecclesiastes tells us that all is vanity because we’re all going to die. Therefore, you should just enjoy your life, do your work, and obey the commandments. The emphasis on enjoying the work of your hands and the blessings of God ties directly into the Torah reading for the end of Sukkot and the High Holiday season.

              Life is fleeting. Attempting to accumulate wealth or status is a pointless endeavor because it can be lost in an instant. Instead of trying to grasp at ephemeral things, we should focus on enjoying whatever blessings we have now.

              The dismissal of money, property, and status as unimportant are directly connected to the laws of shmita and tithing. The tithing is meant to support the members of society who cannot provide for themselves: orphans, widows, Levites, and strangers. Similarly, the remission of debts and freeing of slaves every 7 years reinforces the idea that property and money are transient. Rather than attempting to recoup losses or hold onto “property,” we must let them go. They never really belonged to us. The same is true for the command to extend loans even in the 6^th year, and to not consider the possibility that you won’t receive the money back because of the remission in the next year.

              When God blesses you with all you need, those blessings are not yours alone. Because God has blessed your land and your labor, “there shall be no needy among you” (Deut. 15:4). You must give readily (Deut. 15:10) and you also have to provide for the freed slave when they are set free. And when the time comes to celebrate the harvest, i.e. Sukkot, we must rejoice with the entire community. The Torah especially identifies the vulnerable for inclusion. When we receive blessings, we must share them with everyone. And in doing so, we “shall have nothing but joy” (Deut. 16:15).

              Ecclesiastes is right that we do not know what the future will bring (10:14). Sometimes the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper (Eccl. 7:15). Life is a mystery in that way. But we can still try to find the blessings in life and enjoy them. We can still do our duty and rest assured that we have done what we can. Because the end of the matter, as Kohelet says, is to “revere God and obey his commandments [because] God will call every creature to account…good or bad (12:13-14).

              This attitude of cultivating joy, even in adversity, is one of the most important values in Jewish Science, and it is a value we share with Hasidism, which also emphasizes serving God with joy. As Rabbi Lichtenstein taught, God created us to be happy. And as we can see, joy is a value rooted deeply in Torah, which is why we rejoice in the Torah every year as we end and begin the cycle of reading. As Proverbs teaches us, “all her ways are pleasant, and all her paths are peaceful.”