When I was in yeshiva in Slabodka — a long time ago — on the day after Yom Kippur, in the morning, the Rosh Yeshiva said a few words to the bnei yeshiva.

We were going home now; some of us stayed but most were going back now to their hometowns for Yomtiv and this would be the last talk we would hear from the Rosh Yeshiva until Cheshvan.

***
And so on the following morning, after shacharis, the Rosh Yeshiva spoke to all of us.

“You all labored very much on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur,” he said. “You put your hearts into your tefillos in the yeshiva and you were elevated and inspired; you accomplished a precious achievement. To pray in a good place these three days is equivalent to three months of learning.”

“But it is important now that you should be on guard,” he said.

“Because when you go home soon, so Yomtiv comes and then Simchas Torah; you have to beware of leitzanus.”

Leitzanus means lightheadedness, lack of thought.

​He quoted to us the famous words of the Mesillas Yesharim that leitzanus achas dochah meah tochachos – one leitzanus can overthrow a built up tower, a skyscraper of over a hundred tochachos.

The Meaning of Schach

But you’re thinking; you look up at the schach and you’re thinking.

“Once upon a time our forefathers sat in little huts like this for forty years. And they were the safest, the most protected of any generation in our entire history because they had the ananei hakavod; they had Hakodosh Boruch Hu protecting them. In the midbar there was nothing but schach overhead and still they were more secure in the midbar than ever afterwards in our history.”

You should gain an awareness; a sensory feeling that the shechina is overhead at
all times on our nation.

And the schach is there to aid you to gain that perception that He’s watching over us.

It means we are living in a world of enemies and it’s only because we are in Hashem’s sukkah that we survive.

We always have had enemies who are talking against us, all kinds of falsehoods.

Every kind of canard, all the time.

The UN for instance even now came out with a declaration that Medinas Yisroel is to blame for shooting the Arabs.

Arabs are innocent fellows, of course. The murderous Arabs, the very worst, are poor innocent fellows and Israel is guilty. So they all came together and they made a declaration blaming Israel.

And our honorable President, maybe he wasn’t too happy about it, but he also joined in.

Now I'm not a big patriot of Israel, but we see that UN is one big gathering of anti-Semites.

They didn't even let Israel come into any one of their committees. No committee was open to Israel to become a member.

Not only in the UN. On all sides, anti-Semites are busy all the time.

There’s a tremendous literature of antisemitism and it’s been like that from the earliest times.

And still we're here.

The enemies who slandered us disappeared already.

The Greeks were the worst of all. Josephus quotes many Greek writers and their falsehoods against us. The Greeks never stopped writing against us and now they’re gone.

​Greece of today is not the Greece of antiquity. Greece is entirely lost.

All their gods have gone lost. Their religion and culture have gone lost.

...the stories that we read about in the chumash about the whole nation apply equally to each person individually.

And that means that just as our nation in general is protected by the sukkah of Hakodosh Boruch Hu, in addition, each person should know that Hakodosh Boruch Hu has a sukkah around him personally.

Hashem is protecting you individually.

The Main Lesson to Take into the Sukkah

As much as possible, use the sukkah to gain an awareness of that great fact that Hakodosh Boruch Hu is overhead and He is the one who is guiding us and protecting us forever and ever.

No matter what the goyim try to do against us, we are going to exist and we will live longer than the gentiles.

And each person too should think, individually, that Hashem is protecting him all his life.

That’s the truth – He’s going to be our sukkah forever and He’s going to be your sukkah forever.

As you enter the sukkah, you're doing all the good things; Jewish minhagim, very good.

Ushpizin, noi sukkah, zemiros, everything; simchas Yomtiv, very good!

But don't neglect the opportunity of thinking that the sukkah now is a lesson to you that Hashem protects our nation forever and ever.

By Gilabrand - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21874843

These are the ones who behave decently toward the Jews and do them no harm.

​They are therefore worthy of rest & repose after death.

Of course it’s not that easy – you have to be a chossid [devotee] in the sheva mitzvos Bnei Noach [7 laws of the children of Noah]; you have to be devoted to it, but it’s possible to get Olam Habah [the World to Come]; no question about it.

***
And so to sum up – the gentiles have available to them two kinds of Torah.

One is the Torah which we call the Noachide Laws, the sheva mitzvos Bnei Noach. 

If they are interested, they should come to us and we’ll tell them what those laws are.

If they don’t want to hear them and they want to abide by the laws of their common sense conscience, it’s also something – it’s not as good, but it’s something – and it can help people live a more or less balanced and happy existence in this world.

Question:
If a woman is not obligated in the mitzvah of sukkah & lulav, what spiritual avodah does she perform?

Answer:
1) She sits in the sukkah & receives reward for that.
2) She is happy during the chag, and [her mitzvah] is the same as a man in this.
3) She eats & drinks & fulfills mitzvot.
4) She prepares the needs of the home & is therefore a full participant in all the mitzvot.

Being that the rest of the year, many instances of material & spiritual darkness pass over a Jew, and the strengthening of many gloomy inclinations — the metaphorical aspect of the long nights of Tevet [the winteriest month-MR], which are so dark — therefore, The Holy One Blessed Be He gave a last day to lock up the Regalim (Pilgrimage Holidays), this holy chag Simchat Torah, which is an intimate time between Hashem and the Jewish people and within it is revealed the Ultimate Love of Hashem for the Jewish people.

This is so that a Jew can go out of these holy days with a clear feeling of the Love of the Blessed One, which is eternal in every situation — and this he should take with him for the rest of the year. 

It happens that even the sins & flaws cause "separating curtains" to appear and obstruct so that one cannot see the Love.

Yet because one believes that The Holy One Blessed Be He is always close to him, even when one doesn't feel it and one doesn't see it, then one believes it is now only "hiding."

Behold, this is the power that illuminates for a Jew throughout all the times of darkness of the year.

And a Jew needs to take this joy with him, that the engraving of Simchat Torah will remain within him all year long, enabling him to always feel HaKadosh Baruch Hu with him throughout all the situations of the material reality and the spiritual reality.

Hold on TIGHT!

Thankful am I before You, O Lord My God and God of my Forefathers, for all the loving-kindness you have performed for me during these holy days that have passed. But it is the nature of a human that the day after the Yom Tov, he completely forgets what was.

Where was he the night before? And what was the movement of his thoughts? What were the requests of his heart at the moment he was dancing with the Torah: "Achat shaalti m'eit Hashem otah avakesh shivti b'veit Hashem kol yamei chayai — One thing I asked from Hashem, this I shall ask: that I shall dwell in the House of Hashem all the days of my life" [Tehillim 27:4].

About this, it's stated: "issru chag ba'avotim" — to bind the chag with strong cords so that it won't slip from between his hands, and so that it will remain engraved from the Yom Tov for all the year.

Yaaay...US!

"The Bnei Yisroel, despite all the criticism, actually because of all the criticism, will remain His people and His servants till the End of Days. And that is so important to understand."

-Rav Avigdor Miller

We live in a world that doesn’t accept the greatness of the עם ישראל [Am Yisrael/Nation of Israel]. 

It’s a world of darkness and sheker [falsehood].

And it has an effect on us. Absolutely it does. And therefore, you will have to put effort into internalizing the truth of the greatness of our people.

And no matter how much you speak about it, it won’t be enough.

​Now, I know that you all think that it’s a waste of time for me to talk about this.

You all believe it already. You all believe that the עם ישראל is Hashem’s beloved people.

But it’s not enough to simply believe. That’s almost worthless. You have to know and understand the greatness of our nation more than you know anything else in the world.

There is a certain prevalent attitude of knocking the frumeh, the best that our nation has to offer.

We have to be aware of this and realize that there is a certain form of anti-semitism in Jews themselves. When Jews knock the frum community it’s nothing but an echo of the anti-semitism in their own hearts.

You don’t realize how much the environment outside is affecting you.

I know that you don’t want to hear this, but most of you in this room are goyim. Yes, you are covered with a thin layer of Orthodoxy, but under that, if you scratch a little bit of the paint off, you’ll find that you’re thinking like the goyim around you.

It’s affecting you all the time.

The negative comments about frum Jews – whether individuals or different groups – that one hears from Orthodox Jews is simply the infiltration of gentile propaganda into our minds.

Not only gentile influence, but even more insidious is the influence of the non-religious Jews.

The Reformers, the Zionists, and all the Jewish resha’im have nothing but contempt for authentic Torah Judaism, and for those who practice it. We live among the resha’im, we see them, we speak with them, we read their writings, and we therefore think like them.

And therefore, the only way to counter that propaganda is by heaping praises on the Klal Yisroel as often and as much as you can.

​Everywhere you go, you can find opportunities to speak the praises of the עם ישראל. And if you can’t find opportunities, then you have to be wise enough and alert enough to make them.

Every day brings you many varied opportunities to propagandize on behalf of Hashem’s people. 

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"A whole nation of people, all types of people, sacrificing and laboring for their ideals, for Torah ideals. And they are a people that are loyal to Hashem. There’s nothing better than the frum community, make no mistake about it."
​
- Rav Avigdor Miller

"There’s no better time than now, as we begin the new year, to make a commitment to yourself. This year is going to be a year of raising the banner of the greatness of our people. This year I’m going to look only at the good of our people – because really there is so much good to see."

- Rav Avigdor Miller  

​”אין הקדוש ברוך הוא אוהב אלא למי שאוהב את ישראל — ​Hashem only loves only those who love the Jewish people” 

"And therefore, what better way to find favor in the eyes of Hashem, than to praise and love His people. Think of their praises all the time. Speak of their praises all the time. And love them all the time because of their greatness. And the more you do that, the more Hashem loves you. And there is nothing greater in the world than the love of Hashem."

​-Rav Avigdor Miller