Sukkot: True Joy Through Water
True Joy Through Water
Co-authors: Noah Aronin, Ora Sheinson and Shai Spetgang
On Sukkot, we celebrate water through the Simchat Beit Hashoeva (Celebration of the Water Drawing Ceremony). It is said that anyone who has not participated in this celebration has not known true joy. (Sukkah 51a).
The Gemara discusses this concept along with other examples of great things that existed. (51b) Four things are cited as all the glory of their time:
The Beit Hamikdash for grandeur,
Jerusalem for “tiferet”
Simchat Beit Hashoeva for “true joy,” and
The Synagogue in Alexandria (later mentioned in the Gemara) for the honor of Israel
An examination of the Simchat Beit Hashoeva ceremony yields an interesting comparison to the Ritual Bath (Mikvah). The amount of water used for the ceremonial procedure of the water libation (drawing of the water) in the time of the Beit Hamikdash is 3 logim. This is also the maximum amount of “drawn” water permitted for a Mikvah (ritual bath).
The Mikvah symbolizes throughout Jewish tradition the concept of redemption, repentance, and re-birth. It is of significance that during the time of Sukkot when we are coming to the end of a period of more intense focus on the repentance process, the water is a focus of our ritual tradition.
This blog post was originally from Canfei Nesharim, now part of GrowTorah.