Page 10 - HaMizrachi # 23 Sukkot Simchat Torah 2020 USA

TORAT MIZRACHI

Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon Rabbanit Sharon Rimon

Sukkot on Shabbat

in the Kovno Ghetto

his year, the first day of perhaps not applicable when the aveira be a merit in my favor on the Day of
Sukkot falls on Shabbat, as is mideRabbanan. Judgement.”
Tit did in 1943. In his Holo- At the same time, the Gadol HaDor,
caust responsa, Rabbi Ephraim Oshri He adds: “The decree was to prevent Rabbi Avraham DovBer Kahana-Sha-
tells the following story: Sukkot was someone carrying in a public area. Usu- pira, was also in the ghetto. He was
approaching and no-one in the ghetto ally, even if there is an eruv, we are still sick and in no state to respond to such
had arba minim. Not only were they concerned someone may step outside
distraught but they were also afraid the boundaries of the eruv. However, a question in real time. However, he
felt better during the holiday and Rav
they may never shake a lulav again. in the Kovno Ghetto, there was no
chance of that because it was hermet- Oshri asked him what he would have
Suddenly, a Jew appeared with a set of ically sealed – “No-one was allowed in responded. He replied, “Chazal did not
arba minim! He had come from Vilna or out and it was bordered by an electric talk about a reality in which people are
on business but the Germans would not barbed wire fence guarded by German imprisoned and in perpetual fear of their
allow him to stay for the second day. He soldiers.” lives.”
had to return to Vilna immediately after
Shabbat. The Jews in the ghetto were Perhaps in this context, when there is This year, we will also be celebrating
worried they’d miss out on the mitzvah no chance of carrying something in a Sukkot on Shabbat and we have the for-
so they asked Rabbi Oshri if in those public domain, there is no rabbinic pro- tune to be free people in our own Land.
circumstances they could bench lulav hibition of taking the arba minim, and Yes, we are experiencing a pandemic but
on Shabbat. if the mitzvah was not uprooted, one that pales in the face of everything we
have suffered throughout our history.
The Gemara (Sukkah 42b) says that would be able to take them.
although the Torah indicates we should Although Rav Oshri cited various argu- We pray the pandemic ends soon, that
take the arba minim even when the first ments permitting taking arba minim on the world will be a better and purer
yom tov falls on Shabbat, Chazal decreed Shabbat, he didn’t rule in favor of any place, and that B’Ezrat Hashem we our-
not to, in case a person may carry his particular position: selves will be able to do good deeds, sit
arba minim four amot in the public in the sukkah and joyously take the arba
domain, which of course is forbidden “I did not want to rule in this matter minim, relishing all the good G-d has
on Shabbat. – neither prohibit nor allow, and since given us and using that good to make a
I did not rule it was forbidden, they difference to the world around us.
It seems the Sages’ intention was to
make sure that when Yom Tov falls on understood themselves that one who
Shabbat, we don’t entirely forget the does bench lulav will not lose out.” 1 See more on this in my book “Purim – Hala-
Shabbat part. 1 He then relates that many Jews did cha Mimkora,” p.353.

So did Chazal completely uproot this indeed make the beracha over the arba
mitzvah or did they perhaps only forbid minim and even said “Shechechiyanu.”
it, in which case if one was to take the He adds that Reb Feivel Zissman ד"יה
arba minim on Shabbat one would said he would observe the mitzvah with-
still be fulfilling a mitzvah? Another out asking any questions: “I am ready
question is whether taking the lulav is to accept Gehinnom for observing this
forbidden because it is a mitzvah that mitzvah, because all my life I spent a
comes from an aveira (i.e. overriding the fortune on buying beautiful etrogim, Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon is Head of Mizra-
words of the Sages). Rav Oshri discusses and now – perhaps before my death – I chi’s Shalhevet Educational Advisory Board
this too and writes that this concept is know that observing this mitzvah will and Chairman of Sulamot.

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