The comfort of Succos

I was sitting with my mother in the car yesterday, and she said the most beautiful, amazing thing to me. She was talking about how Hashem is so amazing. Sometimes in life we are faced with difficult challenges, we fall hard sometimes, really hard. That’s what makes us who we are.. When we fall and get back up. It shapes who you and I are- every single setback, failure, fall, yerida, ALL comes from Hashem and Him alone, for our ultimate benefit.Even though it is so hard to see, and hard to see through pain, we have to remind ourselves over and over again that whatever pain we are going through is for our good. She then told me the most amazing, beautiful thing. If you look back at…… your life so far, at every fall, every setback, every time of pain, you will see that somehow Hashem always sends something to make the pain a little less. Whether it is someone in your life, or something else. Whatever it is, Hashem always sends a cloud to catch you when you fall. To make that fall a little softer, a little easier. We have to fall. We have to be given the nisyonos that Hashem gives us, but Hashem loves us so much that He takes that love even further. He makes it a little easier and gives us a cloud to catch our fall. Really think about it.

I want to take this idea a little further. We are going into Succos now, where our succah represents the ananei hakavod- The clouds that protected us, the shechinah that was with us. We just came out of a very serious week. Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur is all about soul searching, revisiting times that may have been painful, going through the whole year in our heads, making a cheshbon hanefesh, And now we are going into Succos. We are landing on those clouds that Hashem sends us. That little “kiss” from Hashem that says, “I know, I love you so much.” That little kiss that takes away our tears and replaces it with a smile of comfort. It replaces despair with hope. It makes that feeling of failure and pain into a feeling of courage and growth. That is Succos. Hashem is giving us that kiss, that protection, that amazing chance to connect with Him in Simcha. We have landed. Now its time to soar