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Rav Avigdor Miller, z”l, called Chol HaMoed an Opportunity to Reflect on Lessons of Yom Tov, Make Kiddush Hashem

Rav Avigdor Miller, z”l, called Chol HaMoed an Opportunity to Reflect on Lessons of Yom Tov, Make Kiddush Hashem

By Yehudit Garmaise 

Although Chol Hamoed is a time for outings, adventures, and fun, the days between Yom Tavin also serve as opportunities for Yidden to reflect on and internalize the lessons and avodah of the Yamim Noraim and Sukkos, said Rabbi Avigdor Miller, z”l, in an e-mail sent out from a website dedicated to the Rav’s teachings.

  “Before Yom Tov we’re very busy,” Rav Miller said. “We’re busy building sukkahs, buying esrogim, making seudos, and bringing korbanos, and sometimes we forget to think about the lessons we’re supposed to learn from Yomtiv.”

   “So Chol Hamoed are a few days that give us the opportunity to think things over, appreciate, and internalize the lessons and our avodah so that we can come back into the last days of Yomtiv and complete our YomTiv season with the new inspiration and recharging we are supposed to receive from our chagim.

   “And therefore Chol Hamoed is a time to think."

   Another opportunity at the end of that is also intended to be an opportunity to recap the lessons of the Yom Tov, Yomtiv, Rav Miller said, is the atzeres of Shemini Atzeres.

   “Just as Shavuos is the atzeres for Pesach in the seven weeks after Pesach, when we came back to the Beis Hamikdash to recap the lessons of Pesach, similarly Shemini Atzeres is similarly the atzeres for Sukkos, when we have one more day and one more opportunity to think things over and cement the lessons of Yom Tov into our minds. 

   “Atzeres is like a סך הכל; a final review in which we ask ourselves, “What did I accomplish?” Rav Miller said.

  “It’s like חסידים ראשונים היו שוהים שעה אחת אחר תפילתם. The tzadikim used to stand a long shmoneh esrei, but when they finished, they took a long time to think back: ”What did we accomplish in our shmoneh esrei? In what places did we not concentrate and focus enough? In what places were we mechadesh chiddushim in our davening?” Like the tzaddikim, we should try to recall, and try to make a cheshbonim to assess where we can do better.”

After being so busy preparing for Yom Tov and then celebrating Yom Tov, we should use these intermediary days before the last days of our Yom Tov season as opportunities to continue to ask ourselves, “Did I crown Hashem as my King? Am I serving Hashem as a loyal oved? Am I expressing Ahavas Yisroel?

Am I making a Kiddush Hashem?

Photo by: Tzemach Glenn - Holy Shots


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