One of the best examples of practical Kabbalah is the already accepted widespread practice of starting to build a sukkah ,immediately after Yom Kippur post breaking the fast at night.
You would think that Hashem would have a little rachhmones on us (mercy) and give his exhausted spiritual warriors a little pass. After all we ve just fasted and prayed for 24 hours straight!
The Kabbalah perspective here is the antidote to what might best be described as post Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur fatigue syndrome,with a mystical twist.
Here is one way to describe what that might have looked like to the mystics.
According to Kabbalah we all receive a huge lump sum deposit of raw spiritual energy during Rosh Hashanah .That is the basis of all we will draw from ,the well we can drink from the entire upcoming year. The "downside" of that is that right at the beginning all that energy is too powerful. It can be compared to riding a powerful 1500 CC motorcycle minus the throttle and the gears that regulate the flow of horsepower.Those controls are vital to allow us the ability to downshift when we are going to fast around a curve,and vice versa. Or a better example might be trying to plug your cell phone directly in to the electrical generator in your town. Its not gonna go so well for you. The energy needs to be routed first through electrical wires and poles throughout the city ,that then leads into your home circuit box and finally to an outlet inside your room that will provide the right voltage for you to plug in and not get fried.So we have all this energy,and we don't know what do with it ,and slowly it slips away from our grasp.How can we prevent this ?
The Jewish way to process the soul energy we ve been given is through the OUTLETS we call mitzvot.
With this in mind the Kabbalists read the biblical passage in Leviticus about sukkot as a direct response to this highly ironic spiritual crisis,when though physically depleted,we should still at least be at the top of our spiritual game! The answer is, of course we are ,but we need to protect and process that energy. Here is what a mystical reading of this passage (Vayikra (Leviticus ) 23:40) might look like
" you shall TAKE to YOURSELVES the fruit of the haddar tree" ,this is the source for the mitzvah of the Lulav and Etrog.
The Kabbalists knowing that the Hebrew letters of the word Lulav are numerically equivalent to the hebrew letters of the word Chaim (life),see in this an opportunity for a deep emotional teaching/ learning.
TAKE that energy To YOURSELF as soon as Yom Kippur ends so that the soul energy that is swirling AROUND instead of floating away from us starts to flow THROUGH us.
Do this by jumping right into the first mitzvah available to us !SUKKAH BUILDING!
This is also the symbolism of the Jew pointing the Lulav upward toward G-d and pointing the Lulav in all directions,almost as if we are gathering, all the spiritual energy that's been dumped on the outskirts of our psyches,and then bringing the lulav,laden with our harvested new life force inward toward our hearts.
Chag sameach
Rabbi Yossi
