Sukkot

The Sukkot holiday is full of mitzvot (good deeds), including the mitzvah of the lulav, the four species. Our Sages say that the four species are similar to weapons - the lulav is similar to a sword, or perhaps a rifle, the etrog maybe to a grenade. In any event, the Sages intend to tell us that there are spiritual wars and there are physical wars, and Man in this world must confront various pests and ward them off.

The “3 Festivals” (or “R’galim”) have connections between them- such as the ‘Hekish’ (connection) between Pesach and Succos.

Music has a tremendous power - for the good or the bad. It all depends on the soul of the composer and the musician.

Moshe’s final speech is really biting & critical. So much talk about all the negative things that can & will happen to us if we stray from G-d. I ask you: Is this really how Moshe wants to be remembered?

The culmination of the great month of Tishrei occurs with the commemoration of the holiday of Succot. It provides a joyful relief and release from the intensity of the first two major holidays of the month, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Rav Kook points out that just as most of the tree is roots, trunk, branches and leaves, despite the fact that the goal is the fruit, similarly most of life is preparations (e.g. eating, dress, work, cooking, raising children), and often one doesn't even achieve his goal. Does that mean that he wasted his life?! The basic question is, if most of life is "tree", and I want to have meaning in life, I have no choice but to find a way to have "taste" in the tree, not just in the fruit. This was the original plan in Eden, and is meant to be the ideal lifestyle, as expressed in the Etrog where the tree tastes like her fruit. Eretz Yisrael is likened to Sukkot, where even the secular/mundane/"tree" has meaning/taste/holiness, and it's all a mitzva.