The time between Yom Kippur and Hoshanah Rabbah presents the opportunity to get in your last bit of teshuvah to sweeten your verdict for the coming year.

I've found that Hashem throws a couple of trials at people during this time, often a watered-down version of trials they've previously failed.

If you're aware (and I wasn't until the past several years), you can identify a trial during this time period as a repeat of a challenge you've failed before.

So if you can identify it, you can also assume that whatever the trial is, it'll likely end with the end of Sukkot (no promises, though).

Therefore, if your usual response to that particular trial is, for example, an outburst of lashon hara or of raging temper, a drink or a sedative (legal or not), sarcasm, secular music or movies, scarfing down fat-laden carbs, or anything else that indulges subpar behavior, then this is your last chance to get it right.

Or to at least get it less wrong.

I've been going through it myself now and it has been up-and-down.

Sometimes, you don't even know what the better behavior is. How EXACTLY are you supposed to handle it?

Saying, "Thanks, Hashem" or "Gam zu l'tovah -- this too is for the best" is always a good fallback position, even when it feels like that's not enough.

So I've lost some, but also won some.

And that's how it goes.

For tzaddikim, it's different. They've done their work & now they're the Holy Winners.

But for the rest of us, it entails falling to the ground with a thud, then struggle to get back on your feet again.

So as long as you're not letting yourself remain sprawled face-down in the dust, then you're probably doing all right -- even if you feel like you aren't.

May we all merit a sweetening of the final verdict!

My kids have been building the sukkah by themselves for the past few years now (because my husband both learns full-time & is also the main breadwinner -- way to go, Hubby!).

This year, we replaced last year's plain white cloth (ruined by last year's heavy rains & disintegrated sukkah decorations) with decorated plastic wall covering and we're quite enjoying the pseudo-palace look.

Gosh, look at how nice it all sounds: "My kids built the sukkah all by themselves" -- ooh, sounds like some kind of idyllic barn-raising party, eh?

Well, the truth is that one child in particular is very into it and galvanizes his sibs into helping (which they do partly out of fun and partly out of a sense of duty that the entire task shouldn't fall on just one sibling). Then another child decided to run off with a friend at a critical sukkah-constructing moment, promising to be back in an hour but returned after 2 hours, at which point it was too late to continue. (As is often true with your average happy-go-lucky type, he was shocked that his spontaneous detour into something more exciting caused so much inconvenience.)

After disgruntlement expressed by some and a sincere apology on his part, the sukkah-building continued the next day. The happy-go-lucky child and the galvanizer then eagerly invested time and energy in decorating the sukkah. Then my husband, who has a fondness for interior design, put the final touches on the schach hangings.

​And there you have it.

So at their request (particularly the one who invested so much effort in the whole process from humble beginning to glorious end), here is a photo of our sukkah:

One of the best parts about it is that the kids who chose the pictures made sure to choose rabbis representing different groups.

So you have the late Lubavitcher Rebbe with the Baba Sali and with Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rav Ovadia Yosef, and Rav Chaim Shlomo Leibovitch of Ponovezh Yeshivah, plus the Chafetz Chaim (on the other side of the sukkah) and more.

I actually don't think it's so great to show off your family or home too much online or anywhere else, but one kid in particular really wanted me to post his hard work on the blog, so here it is.

In the Rav Moshe Chaim Luzatto's Derech Hashem, he describes the act of shaking the lulav (or "pumping" it, according to Sefardi minhag -- it's all the same in Hebrew: "mina'ane'ah") has the power to inspire fear and dread in the hearts of the haters of Am Yisrael.

(To this, one of my teenagers quipped, "What a good feeling to know that when I was mina'ane'ah the lulav, some ISIS terrorist somewhere started shaking in his boots." Heh-heh. Exactly.)

Combined with hakafot (marching in a circle at shul with the lulav), this has the power to subjugate our enemies to the point that they want to serve Am Yisrael. 

(Therefore, I asked my male family members to please engage in some really heartfelt hakafot because I'm overwhelmed by all my responsibilities and could really use a knock on the door from a miraculously reformed Hamas terrorista wishing to help me out.)

Most religious Jews have read Derech Hashem (as have I) and are familiar with this concept, but I'd forgotten about it and enjoyed being reminded.

(Also goes to show the much-lauded importance in the frum world of reviewing the writings of our holy Sages. You get something new each time.)

It's a deceptively simple mitzvah with tremendous beneficial power.

May everyone have a chag sameach and a gut yantiv!

May this Sukkot see revealed protection and joy for Am Yisrael.

(BTW, if you haven't tried it yourself, but always wondered...the bark of an etrog tree really does taste like an etrog minus the juiciness.)

​Here's a sukkah gallery:

In case you missed them, here are some past posts for Sukkot inspiration:

Judaism: The REAL Religion of Love
Special Sukkot Yahrtzeits
Parshat Emor - The Kli Yakar
​(Delves into the beautiful symbolism of the 4 Minim, plus other powerful aspects of Sukkot that impact the rest of the year, including other chagim.)

One of my great-grandfathers became a maskil in Eastern Europe.

But he never lost his passion for Aggadah and used to entertain his grandchildren with stories from Aggadata.

He typed out a memoir of his life, then destroyed it and typed up another memoir. I've read it and possibly his last experience in a sukkah occurred as a young man when he obtained a pork sausage and wanted to eat treifus for the first time in his life -- without getting caught.

So he decided to hide out in the sukkah his father built.

Just as he was about to chomp down on the revolting treif sausage, a rock suddenly fell through the schach and hit him smack on the head.

This rattled him, but he emphatically stated something like: "I in NO WAY believe this was min haShamayim! It was JUST a COINCIDENCE!"

Of course, it's a very unlikely "coincidence."

Where did the rock come from?

Since sukkahs can't be built under anything, where could the rock have fallen from?

​And how did it manage to get through all the schach and land right on Alter Zeide's head at the exact moment he opened his mouth to chomp treifus for the first time?

Anyway, he determinedly continued to eat the sausage in a great demonstration of his commitment to the haskalah.

Then he suffered terrible stomach cramps all night long, which was also supposedly a coincidence and solely due to being unused to pork sausage -- or perhaps the poor quality of this particular sausage.

His rejection of Judaism and embrace of haskalah left him with relatively few descendants. 

​Of those descendants, nearly all are either assimilated Jews or not Jewish at all (except us).

From reading his memoir, I think I would have liked him had I known him.

But he should have listened to the rock.

May we all merit doing true teshuvah from love & not from yissurim.

At a Tehillim/Psalms gathering for women I attended in the US, the woman leading the Tehillim-recital was a Yemenite-Israeli woman who taught at an Ashkenazi school (that accepted all Jews as long as they were frum) and was married to a yeshivish Askenazi.

This meant that she was competent in both ways of Hebrew pronunciation.

She lead the Tehillim in a pleasant sing-song and most charmingly of all, she was so into the davening that the words flowed out in whatever pronunciation naturally flowed forth.

This means that she said: "Shir Hama'alois" -- with the second "a" pronounced as the classic Yemenite guttural "ayin," followed by "ois" instead of "ot."

It was obvious that she had no idea she was mixing nusachs.

It was delicious. Here was Am Echad in one person.

Now, I realize that sticklers for nusach will bristle about the importance of staying within one nusach for davening.

And that is important for formal davening.

But if you're equally comfortable in both, then when immersing yourself in the uplifting heart of Tehillim, both might flow forth naturally. And really, it's better to just immerse yourself in your love of Hashem than to hold yourself back and get caught up in the technicalities of consistent pronunciation.

For me, sometimes "Shabbos" is easier to say than "Shabbat." Especially if I want to describe something as "Shabbosy." "Shabbaty" just doesn't feel the same.

I still find "tsnius" (modesty) more comfortable to say than "tsnee-OOT" because "tsnius" is how I first learned the word.

But all that depends who I'm talking to because it's important to say things in the way most comfortable for the other person.

Likewise, when speaking with a Chassidish Yerushalmi friend, I try to greet her with "Gut Shabbos," even if she's greeting me with "Shabbat Shalom."

In fact, my Chassidish neighbors always use Sefardi pronunciation when speaking to me and other Sefardi neighbors. They also smoothly turn the conversation from Yiddish to Hebrew if a non-Yiddish-speaker arrives, including when they address each other (which they normally would in Yiddish) in front of the non-Yiddish-speaker.

It's all just a friendly way of respecting one's fellow.

When my children first started attending a Sefardi school, the Moroccan ganenet used to wave to me out the window of the van, calling out, "Gut Shabbos!" as they sped by on Friday afternoons.

She didn't need to do that because despite my Ashkenazi ethnicity and American nationality, I'm not frum from birth (i.e., I didn't grow up with "Gut Shabbos!") and I'm married to a Moroccan who davens in a Sefardi synagogue, and we happily send our children to a Sefardi school and I am quite comfortable with "Shabbat Shalom!" and general Sefardi pronunciation.

But in her experience, Ashkenazi Americans say "Gut Shabbos!" and she wanted me to feel comfortable and accepted.

Very nice!

As always, it's the heart that counts.

When my husband and I are were temporarily rabbi and rebbetzin (or is it rabbanit?), one of our congregants was this lovely 90-year-old lady named Shayna. (She attended our Sefardi synagogue because it was within walking distance and I'm not sure that she was aware of the differences. To her, it was a kosher synagogue with a mechitza and an Orthodox rabbi, and that's all that mattered.)

During Sukkot, she would come up to me to wish me a good year among other good things, and she did so in Yiddish. I only got the gist of her exact words ("a gut yahr!"), but I remember the feeling of warmth and pleasure that soaked through me as she leaned her smiling wizened face toward me with her wrinkled hand on my arm and spoke to me from her heart.

In Shayna's experience, frum people bless each other in Yiddish. So it never occurred to her that she shouldn't speak to me in Yiddish, especially since I was the rebbetzin -- no matter that I came from a secular English-only background (which she didn't know about) and that I was married to a Moroccan-Israeli and that we were standing in a Sefardi synagogue.

And I loved her for it.

Conversely, if you are in Israel and you greet your Sefardi neighbor with "Gut Shabbos", she might get offended. Why? Because then it feels like you're imposing your nusach on her, as if her nusach isn't good enough. Also, there's this implication that Yiddish is the proper language as opposed to Hebrew (or the Jewish-style Arabic common among Moroccans).

And sadly, there are indeed some Ashkenazim with that attitude, which is why your Sefardi neighbor isn't being oversensitive when she gets miffed about your perfectly friendly "Gut Shabbos." (Although she should still give you the benefit of the doubt, that you were just expressing your ahavat Yisrael in the best way you knew how. Or that you just forgot how it might come off to her.)

Then around another Sukkot in Eretz Yisrael, a Chassidish-American acquaintance came up to me and started wishing me all sorts of nice things for the coming year -- in Yiddish.

Ironically, I suddenly felt irritated.

I don't know Yiddish, I fumed silently. Why was she putting me in this uncomfortable position of nodding blankly and not knowing how to respond to her gush of words because I mostly didn't understand? She knows I'm originally from an "out of town" location in America and that I'm firmly in the Sefardi community here in Eretz Yisrael. Why on earth would I understand all the Yiddish coming out of her mouth?

This admittedly insignificant incident left me disgruntled.

But why? What was wrong with me all of the sudden?

Why, when Shayna did EXACTLY the same thing, it imbued me with warm fuzzies, yet when this acquaintance did it, I got all flustered and resentful?

Even stranger, I actually like Yiddish. I enjoy trying to speak it with my friends' children who only know Yiddish.

So why did I all of the sudden have a problem with Yiddish?

I guess it's because it's the heart that counts.

Shayna is brimming with goodness, so when she talks to you in the language of her choice, then all her goodness just gushes forth into you. And Shayna was speaking to me in Yiddish because she thought that was the best way to convey her good wishes; she had no idea I didn't understand. (Ditto with the Sefardi ganenet above.)

Yet this acquaintance tended to be firmly entrenched in her own world and in her way of doing things. She and her husband were used to being leaders of their community and expressing good wishes in Yiddish was the RIGHT way to do things, gosh darn it, whether the listener understood and whether the listener was comfortable or not.

In other words, she wasn't reaching out to me, she was asserting herself over me (and vicariously, over a whole large group of fellow Jews).

Was this intentional? Likely not. Some people are just very self-absorbed and so used to holding on to their own thing (which, if you've lived frum in America, you need to do to resist the pull of secular American culture), that they don't realize when they've overstepped.

So this is what I've learned:

• Be like Shayna.
• Be like my son's Sefardi ganenet.
• Be like my wonderful Chassidish neighbors.
• Be like the Yemenite Tehillim leader.

Reach out from the heart and don't overreach.

Before becoming frum, I’d never heard of Shemini Atzeret. Yet even a small amount of research showed it to be a holiday of love. Hashem loves us so much that He wants us back for a special chag that doesn’t commemorate any specific event, but is like an intimate celebration with Hashem on a national level.
 
This always intrigued me because all the other chagim commemorate significant spiritual events—except Shemini Atzeret.

Furthermore, the whole idea of Hashem wanting to be with us so exclusively and intimately—Shemini Atzeret holds the same obligations and prohibitions as other chagim: no phones, no computer, no driving, no malacha except cooking (according to the special laws for cooking on chagim), and lots of praying and singing—always intrigued me because Hashem is Omnipotent.
 
In other words, Hashem doesn’t need anything, including us. But despite all our quirks, back-sliding, and contentiousness, He metaphorically stretches out His Arms and grabs us up for a big tight Divine Hug called Shemini Atzeret.

Shir HaShirim
Even a cursory glance at Tanach, mussar books, chassidus, zemiros and piyutim show that Judaism expects a Jew to cultivate a very personal relationship with God. He is constantly referred to as a Father to Whom we are supposed to speak, confide in, confess, and cry out.
 
And love.

For example, Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs):
Once you know it’s an intimate exchange between Hashem and the Jewish people, and once you learn even a little bit of the symbolism behind its powerful metaphors, it becomes a beautiful experience to read and learn.
 
I once had a roommate who came up with the inspiration to do a responsive reading in English of Shir HaShirim, with one young woman reading Hashem’s part and the other reading Bnei Yisrael’s part. After we finished, her hands, still holding the chumash, fell to her lap as she said in an awed voice, “Look at how much Hashem loves us. He just loves us so much.”
 
The inspiring thing about this is that she was just a very normal young woman in the process of teshuvah and still had foot in part of the secular world and was reading in English—and no matter how good the translation is, Shir HaShirim loses a tremendous amount without the Hebrew.
 
Yet the basic message still shot like an arrow into her soul.
 
This is a beautiful piece to read in a quiet moment as a dialogue of love between you and Hashem.

Zemiros and Piyutim
Zemiros and piyutim are also love songs to Hashem.
 
One of the most famous, Yedid Nefesh, is well-known among both Ashkenazim and Sephardim, with a variety of beautiful tunes to accompany it.
 
Just its opening words: “Soul Companion, Merciful Father, draw your servant to Your Will” already demonstrates incredible adoration on the part of the composer. The verses continue with the love and longing only increasing: “Majestic One, Beautiful One, Radiance of the World, my soul is lovesick for Your Love—please, God, please heal her now…” And later, the composer begs Hashem to spread the Sukkah of His Peace over him.
​
Even if one does not normally feel much emotion for Hashem, singing this piyut in a quiet spot can awaken any dormant feelings of the love and deveikut every Jewish soul feels toward Hashem, whether he or she is aware or not.
 
(Here, Yedid Nefesh is used as an example, but you certainly can and should use any piyut or zemiros with which you connect emotionally.)

Verbal and Artistic Expressions of Love
Talking to Hashem, especially praising and thanking Hashem for anything and everything, also awakens feelings of love and intimacy toward Him.
 
Furthermore, this can also be performed according to each person’s soul-expression: In Tanach, we have examples of our greatest people singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, and writing their love to Hashem. And there’s no reason why you can’t also paint or draw your loving feelings toward Hashem.

​In Western culture nowadays, emotions are given short shrift.
 
Many people shove positive emotions into categories like "sappy," "hyper," or just plain "too much." And negative emotions are treated as unwanted vermin to be brushed aside, stamped out, and exterminated as quickly as possible.
 
The Puritan ethic, so good in some ways, has also spread to Jewish observance as an ideal. But it's NOT the ideal.
 
When it comes to Hashem and our relationship with Him, we're SUPPOSED to get all worked up.

It’s well-known that women connect more easily in this way to Hashem than men.

It’s not hard to think of several reasons for this, such as women being more naturally into relationships, the slavish devotion women show more of a tendency to express toward their object of love (not so healthy when directed toward a human being, but very much the ideal when directed toward God), being more verbally and emotionally expressive, and the fact that (as shown by sources such as Shir HaShirim and the piyutim) the Jew takes on a feminine role in the relationship with Hashem—which comes naturally to women, of course, being already positioned in a feminine role.
 
However, we possess hundreds (maybe thousands?) of examples of Jewish men who have definitely succeeded in cultivating an intimate and loving relationship with Hashem since time immemorial, so it’s definitely a viable goal for all Jews regardless of gender or temperament.

The yahrtzeit of Rebbe Nachman ben Simcha and Feiga (1772-1810) of Breslov falls on 18 Tishrei, Wednesday night to Thursday night.
 
The yahrtzeit of Rav Eliezer (ben Yitzchak) Papo (1785-1826), the author of the Pele Yoetz falls on 20 Tishrei, Friday night to Saturday.
 
Free audio classes and English translations of chapters of the Pele Yoetz can be found here.
 
Free downloads of Rebbe Nachman's lessons and stories can be found here.

There is a very interesting Kli Yakar in Parshat Emor which describes the process of how teshuvah is accepted from Rosh Hashanah through Sukkot.
 
It's very inspiring and shows how vital the pre-Sukkot prep and the first day of Sukkot are for the final step of the teshuvah process in which the Jewish People have been involved until now.
 

If you haven't done teshuvah yet or if you would like to give your teshuvah one final shlug, the first day of Sukkot is vital for doing so.
 
As the Kli Yakar says:
 
"....the first day of the [Sukkot] holiday is the first for the accounting of transgressions. Therefore, the establishment of mass teshuvah needs to be done on that very day."

For the link, please click here.
(It's accompanied by lots of photos for easier reading.)
 
Chag Same'ach!