When Labor Leads to Love

After Ezra and Nechemia returned to the Land of Israel and began constructing the second Beis Hamikdash, the Navi describes that Ezra built a wooden pulpit and started to read from the Torah in front of the entire Jewish people.  This impressive event takes place during the month of Tishrei, and as the people listen to the words of the Torah, they begin to cry and weep uncontrollably.  They realize they had completely forgotten about the holiday of Sukkos and their religious obligations.

Embarrassed and ashamed at how far they’ve fallen during the seventy-year exile, the people immediately spring into action.  Everyone starts running around the fields and mountains looking for any branches or trees that would be helpful in building a Sukkah.  And then, with their Sukkahs finally built, the passuk tells us that since the days of Yehoshua, the Jewish people had not celebrated Sukkos. 

The commentators recognize that there are two important novelties about this story.  First, it seems from the text that this was the first time the Jewish people were hearing about the Mitzvah of Sukkos.  This means that during the seventy years of exile, the Jewish people had completely forgotten most of the mitzvos written in the Torah and didn’t fulfill them! 

Secondly, and equally strange, the psukim tell us that Sukkos hadn’t been celebrated with such excitement and enthusiasm since the time of Yehoshua bin Nun.  What does that mean?  Does that mean that during the days of Dovid or Shlomo they didn’t celebrate Sukkos with excitement?  What was special about this particular Sukkos during the days of Ezra and Nechemia? 

Rav Kook suggests that throughout the generations, people dwelt in Sukkahs, but they didn’t attach any importance to the actual building of the Sukkah.  They didn’t care how it was built or who built it.  All they cared was that they had a sukkah to sit in. All of this changed in the days of Ezra and Nechemia.  For the first time a proclamation was made to all of the People that they themselves should go out and cut down the trees and that they should go out and trim the branches for building the Sukkah.  What was unique here wasn’t just that they fulfilled the mitzvah of Sukkah, but that they themselves put in the effort for the mitzvah of sukkah.  What was unique is that they didn’t delegate it, but they did it themselves.  And that is what fostered so much happiness and excitement.

There is something exciting and fulfilling about building something yourself or working on a big project alone and getting it finished without additional help. Whether you're good at working with your hands or with computers, the ability to say, "I did that myself" can be quite intoxicating.

Researchers call this the “Ikea Effect.”  In a set of four studies, participants were asked to fold origami cranes and frogs, assemble IKEA boxes, and build sets of Legos. Researchers then asked the builders to bid for their creations, and compared the prices with bids from people who hadn’t put in the effort to build them. The builders consistently out-bid the non-builders.  As the study concluded, “labor leads to love.”

This is why Sukkos during the days of Ezra and Nechemia was celebrated with so much excitement.  Because, according to Rav Kook, it was the first time they worked hard for it and did it themselves.  And with that effort came the unprecedented excitement.  Rabbi Soloveitchik writes that what is true of our excitement is true of holiness.  “Holiness” doesn’t exist on its own.  Through our effort, we create holiness: “Holiness is created by man, by flesh and blood. Through the power of our mouths, through verbal sanctification alone, we can create holy offerings of the Temple treasury and holy offerings for the altar. The land of Israel became holy through conquest, Jerusalem and the Temple courts – through bringing two loaves of thanksgiving... It is man who sanctifies space and makes a sanctuary for his Creator.” Kedusha doesn’t come from sitting on the sideline as a passive observer; rather, it’s our effort that creates the Kedusha. 

Sanctity and fulfillment don’t just happen. Sanctity and fulfillment in our marriages or relationships comes from putting in the effort.  Sanctity and fulfillment in our davening comes from putting in the effort. Sanctity and fulfillment in our Judaism comes from putting in the effort. We make them happen.  And, when we do, that’s the exciting part. 

Rabbi Ezriel Tauber tells the story of a Sukkos memory from 1942.  At the time, he was he was in hiding with his parents on a Czech farm as they posed as non-Jewish farmers to hide from the Nazis.   Rabbi Tauber remembered how, as a young child, he watched his father plan how they would fulfill the mitzvah of Sukkah, even in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. There was a closed-off construction site near the farm, so his father bribed the owner of the land to give their family access to the construction site to hide some of their property from the taxing authorities.  They did this and, with a lot of sacrifice and effort, managed to build a small, low Sukkah using some construction materials. They went each night of Sukkos to quickly eat and bentch in the Sukkah and fulfill the mitzva. 

When Rabbi Tauber remembered this incident, he went to see his father who was in Yerushalayim. As he recalled the events from seventy years earlier, his father said, “Ah, I remember that Sukkos! I’m still longing for such a Sukkah!” His father was a man who survived the war with his entire family alive, lived to see his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren alive and well, and merited to live in Yerushalayim and see Eretz Yisroel and the Jewish people built up more and more.

How beautiful could Sukkos have been when he huddled under that little Sukkah at some dirty construction site in Czechoslovakia in 1942?  Yet his father looked back on that little Sukkah more fondly and with more nostalgia than all of the well-built Sukkos he had sat in since.  Of course, that Sukkah meant the most to him because he put the most effort into it.  He struggled the most for it and made it with incredible sacrifice.   And that’s what made it so meaningful. 

If we want our lives to be infused with holiness, if we want our Judaism to be filled with excitement and enthusiasm, if we want our Judaism to feel important – then we need to be willing to put in the preparation and the effort. Because, Judaism isn’t meant to be experienced as a bystander, but you need to experience it for yourself.