THE POWER IS IN THE PREPARATION
In Parshat Emor, the Torah presents a section on Sukkot. That section, includes the halachot of the “arba minim” – the Four Species” — i.e., the etrog and the Lulav Hadasim and Aravot that we take with it
:The Torah presents these mitzvot with the following verse
U’lekach’tem la’chem ba’yom ha’rishon … “[“You shall take on the first day”]. Medrash Raba asks: “Why do you speak of taking the arba minim on the “first day”? In reality, the day on which we begin taking the arba minim is the fifteenth day [of the month o.]Tishrei
The Midrash explains “Take for yourself on the first day Rishon Le’cheshbon Avonos” – “The first day of the accounting for.one’s sins” Thus the first day of Sukkot is also the first day on which HaShem resumes reckoning our accounts with Him
The Medrash (cited by the Tur Shulchan Aruch OH 581) explains that by the
time Yom Kippur arrives we’ve been forgiven. The four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot are extremely busy times in preparation for the Festival. People are working on their Sukkah, selecting arba minim doing the Igud on the lulav and preparing special food and clothing for the Holiday. People are so occupied during these four days that they don’t have the time to sin
The much diminished level of aveirot (sins) continues until the first! day of Sukkot and might increase then
.
The Taz (Shulchan Aruch OH581) asks why the Medrash assumes that the four days of spent doing the mitzvot — e.g. arba minim –pertaining to the Holiday are “Yoseir gedolim” [on a higher level] than the actual mitzvah of taking the arba minim. The Taz asked: How could that be? How can the eve of Sukkot be holier than Sukkot? Why should the days of preparation for the Mitzvah of Succot be of greater value than the actual day that we perform the Mitzvah?! The answer of course is that the days before it we don’t sin but on Sukkot we sin. Apparently, the Taz found.the idea extraordinary, and left it at that!
שחמט דיגיטל