Thoughts on the Permanent and the Temporary
Let me tell you something personal. I always used to get two copies of the Yated, one for the family to read and the other to put away, to archive. When I started writing, I decided that I wanted to have one hard copy of everything that I wrote. I would store the papers in large plastic totes in my attic. I thought that it was important for the historical record.
I changed my mind, however, m’pnei maaseh shehoyah, because of a story that happened.
This is the story. Seven years ago, my father passed away. Although my mother, may she live and be well, continued to live in the house, after a period of time, it became evident that she needed to move out of the big house.
The task of cleaning out the house was left to my siblings and me. We are spread across Canada, the United States, and Eretz Yisroel, but we all decided to set aside a full week to come together at the house we had called home, the house in which we all grew up together, and systematically clean it out. We would keep what was important, valuable, or sentimentally valuable, and give away or throw away everything else.
It was an emotionally wrenching week. There was a lot of nostalgia, with good memories and sadness all mixed together. My father, zichrono livrocha, was a very organized person, so everything was stored in an organized fashion. It was just amazing to see how he kept everything stored systematically. If you wanted to find the warranty for the Sunbeam blender that he bought in 1964, you could easily find it. Everything had a system.
To the…Dumpster!
Being an academic, my father had a massive library of both sifrei kodesh and, lehavdil, secular academic books. What would we do with all those books and seforim? Most of the seforim were not wanted by the children and grandchildren. They were all old print. Today’s seforim are so much easier to learn from, and other than children and grandchildren taking sentimental keepsakes, the rest were given to shaimos for a fee. (No, you can’t even give them away for free.)
Aside from sentimental and rare books, most of the books ended up in a dumpster, together with all the warranties, mortgage bills, utility bills, and everything else that had been meticulously preserved. As we were going through the house, a sobering thought hit me: This is what happens after 120. A person doesn’t take anything with him, and so much of what he has painstakingly amassed just ends up in a dumpster. A person only takes with him the kinyanei netzach. Everything else is very temporary.
We Were Mainly Left With…Memories
What we did take with us from the house were the memories. Memories of the Seder nights conducted by my father, memories that have since been translated into action as we continue to do things the way he taught us. Memories of Shabbos seudos, zemiros, and the lessons that he and my mother taught us. Even memories of the geshmake baseball games in the yard or hockey games in the driveway. Those things are indelibly etched into our hearts. That is what one takes. The house has long been sold and gutted, and only the memories and the spiritual legacy that our father bequeathed to us remain.
It was a great house. The upstairs had four bedrooms and my father’s large study. The main floor had a living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, and guest bedroom. There was a basement where we played and where the large freezer was, and a cellar where my father’s homemade wine was kept.
All of it was gutted.
It is gone.
And now?
It only exists in our memories.
That is why I stopped archiving the Yateds. I wondered, “For what reason am I giving all this extra work to my children? One day, after 120 years, they will just have to shlep those totes and toss them into the dumpster.”
The “Sukkah Mindset” = Stop and Think
I was thinking about these ideas as we go into our sukkos. The whole idea of Sukkos is to stop for a second and get out of our diras keva mindset. In this world, we are so busy amassing possessions. (How many times a day do Amazon, UPS, FedEx, Walmart, and Instacart come to your house? Just asking.)
We are so busy with our houses that we sometimes don’t realize what really lasts. The atmosphere of simcha in your sukkah as the family sings together will last long after anything else. Believe me.
On Sukkos, it is time to realize that all the stuff that we “want,” the big toys and little toys—the big toys, such as a house or car, and our little toys, our devices, any fun stuff that we buy—is just a diversion. It doesn’t last, we won’t remember it one day, and, at best, it will all end up in a dumpster somewhere.
The “Large Dirah with High Ceilings and Wide Windows”
Let me share with you a story that I recently saw about Rav Nesanel Reisman, the father of Rav Yisroel Yitzchok Reisman, who was a well-known dayan on the Badatz of the Eidah Hachareidis.
Rav Nesanel was a talmid of the Chiddushei Harim and one of the prominent Chassidim of the Sefas Emes who left Poland to move to Eretz Yisroel in the late 1800s.
In Poland, Rav Nesanel had a close friend named Reb Shaya Previs. Before leaving for Eretz Yisroel, Rav Nesanel made a deal with Reb Shaya that they would keep in touch and that Rav Nesanel would report back to him about what life was like in Eretz Yisroel.
Not long after he arrived, Rav Nesanel wrote a letter to Reb Shaya: “I have a very large dirah with high ceilings, rooms, and wide, beautiful windows.”
Reb Shaya was very surprised. Until then, he had been under the impression that the Yidden in Yerushalayim lived in great poverty, but from Reb Nesanel’s report, it seemed that he was living on a relatively high standard.
A few years later, Reb Shaya went to Yerushalayim. The first thing he did was ask people where his close friend, Rav Nesanel Reisman, lived. They pointed to a hovel. It was so small and so farkvetched that the only way to reach it was by going down a deep flight of stairs underground. It looked like a dank, dreary, damp basement.
Reb Shaya couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw what the “house” looked like. Either way, he didn’t even bother going down the stairs to visit, because he was certain that Rav Nesanel was in the bais medrash, not in his house.
He therefore set out to find the bais medrash where his friend would be learning and he found him. After greeting each other warmly, the two old friends, who were so thrilled to see each other, began to shmooze. One of the first things Reb Shaya brought up was the puzzling letter.
“Rav Nesanel,” he asked in wonder, “why, in your letter, did you paint an untruthful picture for me? You said that you have such a nice dirah with big windows and a high ceiling. But I see that you live in a damp, underground cellar that is barely habitable!”
“Stop,” Rav Nesanel held up his hand and replied. “Reb Shaya, look around. Don’t you see my dirah? It is right here. Look at this bais medrash. It has a high ceiling, beautiful wide windows, and even a chotzer right in front. This is where I live. I barely visit that tiny hovel. My main house is here.”
On Sukkos, we leave our houses and show that our spiritual home, the sukkah, is our real home.
Rav Nesanel lived with this concept all year round. It was “ah gantz yohr Sukkos.”
His real dirah was the bais medrash.
Think: What Is Your Reality?
Perhaps this Sukkos, we should sit down for a second and contemplate. What is our dirah? What is real to us? What will we really take with us? What real kinyonei netzach, eternal lessons, will we bequeath to our children and grandchildren long after we are gone?
This Sukkos, let us think about the words of Chazal that teach us, “Tzei midiras keva v’shev b’diras arai.” Let us remember that Chazal are not telling us to dump our permanent houses in the garbage and go out camping without even the most basic amenities. They are not telling us to become depressed because we have to live without gashmiyus.
If we stop to think about what Chazal are telling us, we might actually feel liberated. Yes, it can be very liberating to take the time to recalibrate and think about what is really important. Just that knowledge is the key to true simcha during this year’s Zeman Simchaseinu.
If we think this way, we can live our lives with the true simcha of ah gantz yohr Sukkos.
Gut Yom Tov. Ah freilichen Zeman Simchaseinu.