Joy = Connection

We completed the avoda of Rosh Hashana, being mamlich Hashem, leading us to do teshuva on Yom Kippur for all the wrongdoings we'd done, which then created a closeness between us and G-d.

Let us not allow it to end there. 

It's easy to breathe a sigh of relief when Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are over. We've done the work; we did teshuva. Hopefully we were judged as righteous and a year of good is awaiting us. Now we can relax a little... 

But, as we lean back and relax our vigilance, haunting captivating strains, the melody of Olam HaZeh, beckon us. We each have a path that we cannot help but follow, one that will chv"sh lead to spiritual tragedy if we follow the inclinations that lure us into their inescapable grasp. We are blinded, and we rationalize, justifying why things may not be damaging to our spirituality...

It is at these moments when the music is so pulsating, so enchanting, that we need some way to combat it. 

This is Sukkah. 

It is a simple spiritual place where Hashem shelters us. It is a safe haven, a hallow, where the captivating materialism of Olam HaZeh cannot reach us. It is a place that will help us attain the closeness to HK"BH that our tefillos during the Yamim Noraim helped us glimpse. Sukkah can help us realize where true happiness comes from and ignore the confusion of "maybe I can live with this distance between me and G-d."

On the second day of Creation, division was created; Hashem separated the waters into upper waters and the lower waters, creating heavens and earth. For this reason, on Monday, Hashem did not say “Ki Tov,” because there is something inherently not good about separation. Chazal tell us that someone who did not see the water libation during the Simchas Beis HaShoava never experienced authentic happiness. Why does pouring water engender such intense joy? Says R’ Hutner, this is the truest sense of happiness there is -- the (re)connection of the mayim elyonim and mayim tachtonim (upper and lower waters).

Connection is simcha. Genuine happiness comes from accomplishment, or perhaps from peace of mind. When we reach this level of connection to G-d, we have both. Relationships take effort, and dveikus with Hashem is no different. When you reach a level in a relationship where there isn't a "me and a you," only a "we," then you know you've made it.

Chag sameach!