Deuteronomy The Source of Our Joy (Simcha)
Parashat Re’eh Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17
I just returned from Israel this week, after one of the hardest summers we have ever endured. The war in Gaza drags on and on, with the hostages still held in deplorable conditions and inexorable suffering on the Palestinian side. A pall of depression hangs over the country, compounded by this week’s thick heat. And yet, paradoxically, Israel is still the place I feel the deepest joy. The Hebrew root for “joy” or “happiness”, s.m.ch. (שמח), is found no less than seven times in this week’s parashah (Deuteronomy 12:7, 12, 18; 14:26; 16:11, 14, and 15). Simcha is intrinsically related to enjoying the bounty of the land. Once the Israelites arrive and settle there, they must make offerings to the Tabernacle or Temple, “in the place where YHWH (‘the LORD’) will choose to make His name dwell” (12:11). “And (there), you (pl.) shall rejoice before YHWH (‘the Lord’) your God (וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם לִפְנֵי יְ־הֹוָה אֱלֹקיכֶם )….” (v. 12). What is the nature of this joy or happiness? It is related not to wealth or achievement, not to “having” but to “being”— being with others, in the present and in shared purpose.
In the final chapter of parashat Re’eh, joy is deeply connected to the experience of the pilgrimage harvest festivals of Shavuot and of Sukkot, in the late spring and the fall. We read, with regard to Shavuot (Festival of Weeks):
And you are to rejoice before the presence of YHWH your God (וְשָׂמַחְתָּ לִפְנֵי יְ־הֹוָה אֱלֹקיךָ), you, your son, your daughter, your servant and your maid, and the Levite who is within your gates, and the sojourner, the orphan and the widow who are among you, in the place that YHWH your God chooses to have his name dwell. (Deuteronomy 16:11, trans. Everett Fox).
Note that the original command to rejoice (in 12:12), has been transformed here from the collective “you all” (אתם) to the singular, “you” (אתה, we could assume the ‘you’ includes both men and women, Hebrew being a highly gendered language). Yet the shift to the singular is misleading, for the experience of joy is clearly inclusive; it entails sharing along with your son and your daughter, with your male and female servants, with the needy of the community (the landless Levite, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger). It is intrinsically related to offering back to God, in gratitude from the bounty of the land (in this case, the freewill gift of bikkurim, first fruits, see Deut. 26:1-11). Memory of our past suffering is also intrinsic to collective gratitude: “And remember that you were a slave in Egypt….” (16:12).
But is the injunction—“you are to rejoice (וְשָׂמַחְתָּ)…” (v. 11) a command or a natural consequence of the agrarian communal life, dedicated to the worship of God in adherence to the covenant? Similar language is used with respect to Sukkot:
You are to rejoice on your festival (וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְּחַגֶּךָ), you, your son, and your daughter, your servant and your maid, the Levite, the sojourner, the orphan and the widow who are within your gates. For seven days you are to celebrate-a-festival to YHWH your God in the place that YHWH chooses, for YHWH your God has been blessing you in all your produce and in all the doings of your hands, and you shall be oh so joyful (וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ)! (Deuteronomy 16:14-15, trans. Everett Foxx).
The verb, “rejoice” (s.m.ch. שמח) bookends this passage, and concludes with the strange qualifier ’akh (אַךְ), variously translated as: “you shall be only joyful” (Robert Alter); “have nothing but joy” (NJPS); or “and you shall surely celebrate/rejoice” (NRSV, KJV). The little two-letter word ’akh (אַךְ) usually intimates a disjunction, “but” or “only”; “however” or “nevertheless” (as in “…Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark” Gen. 7:23; cf. 9:4-5 [2x], 18:32 and so forth). So on Sukkot, you are to experience nothing but joy, only joy; not a tad of sorrow! Is this even possible? Can one mandate happiness? According to Rashi, this is not the language of command but of promise. And, indeed, if the Israelites maintain their covenantal obligation to God, they will experience joy, not as a miracle of divine beneficence but as a natural consequence of their expression of gratitude.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (z”l) in his essay on “Collective Joy”, tells a story that is key to understanding the nature of Jewish happiness:
In 1968 I met the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, of blessed memory, for the first time. While I was there, the Chassidim told me the following story. A man had written to the Rebbe in roughly these terms: “I am depressed. I am lonely. I feel that life is meaningless. I try to pray, but the words do not come. I keep mitzvot but find no peace of mind. I need the Rebbe’s help.” The Rebbe sent a brilliant reply without using a single word. He simply circled the first word of every sentence and sent the letter back. The word in each case was “I.”
As an antidote to the current epidemic of depression in contemporary society, Rabbi Sacks outlines four essential ingredients to Jewish happiness imbedded in our parashah, which are still deeply relevant to this day:
- When you rejoice, it must be together with others—with your children, with your servants, with the underprivileged of the community. Joy is inclusive and entails care for others.
- In the context of the festivals, it entails acknowledging the source of blessing, giving back to God. Without the Temple, this comes with the observance of mitzvot, blessings, and prayer. That is, joy emerges out of an expression of gratitude.
- It is embedded in a collective history (or memory, rather). “Remember you were once slaves in Egypt…” (repeated like a mantra throughout the Book of Deuteronomy)
- And, implied in all of the above, joy is a collective experience. It is about the “we”, not the “I-me-mine.”
I want to bless you this Shabbat with the joy of being with others, in presence and in gratitude.
I would also invite you to return to this essay ahead of Sukkot, “the time of our joy”. God willing, by then the hostages will be freed and the war will end, and we can then celebrate without the qualifier ’akh, no “however, but, only, or nevertheless”. We can only hope!
Rav Rachel Adelman (PhD, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Hebrew College, where she recently earned rabbinic ordination (2021). She is the author of several academic and popular articles in Jewish studies, as well as two books: The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha (Brill, 2009) and The Female Ruse: Women’s Deception and Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield Press, 2015), She just completed a new monograph: Daughters in Danger, from the Hebrew Bible to Modern Midrash (forthcoming, Sheffield). When not writing books, papers, or divrei Torah, it is poetry that flows from her pen.
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