Yom Kippur - Motzei Yom Kippur: Go Eat Your Bread With Joy

מספר בלבבי משכן אבנה ח"ו עמ' רה - "לך אכול בשמחה לחמך"

On Yom Kippur, We Reach The Perception That Our Daas\Undertanding Is But A Levush\Garment

Our Sages state that on Motzei Yom Kippur, a Heavenly voice goes out and says: “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink, with a good heart, your wine; for G-d already desires your deeds.”[1]

The deeper implication of this is that on Yom Kippur, we didn’t eat, and through our fasting, we are desired by Hashem. Now that Yom Kippur is over, we can eat, for Hashem has forgiven our sins and we are now desired by Him.

Hashem has forgiven us after Yom Kippur not only from our personal sins, but even for the root of all sins, which was the sin of Adam HaRishon. “G-d already desires your deeds” is thus referring in a deeper sense to the atonement of Adam’s sin, and we are told that we can now eat, a hint to how we are forgiven over the sin of Adam, which involved eating. [Adam sinned with eating from the Eitz HaDaas, and now that we have been rectified through Yom Kippur, we can now “eat”, for the sin of “eating” which Adam committed is now rectified].

Impaired Daas and Rectified Daas

We will explore this with greater clarity.

When Adam and Chavah sinned, the concept of niddah (menstruation) began. For half a month, a woman is ritually impure, and for the other half of the month, she is in a state of purity [thus, the union of husband and wife cannot be complete, in the current state, for it cannot be a constant connection].

The entire concept of niddah only began with the sin. Before the sin, the union of man and woman was in its perfect state. In our mystical teachings of our Sages, man and woman are represented by the spiritual forces of “Abba V’Ima” (“father and mother”); man\father is parallel to chochmah (wisdom), and woman\mother is parallel to binah (contemplation). The Sages also describe chochmah and binah as being an inseparable pair: “Chochmah and binah are two friends who do not separate from each other.” When chochmah and binah are together, there is daas; and the daas is constant. This is because chochmah and binah are the essence of the mochin (mind), thus they cannot be separated, because when they are together, there is daas, which unites them on a continual basis.

However, after the sin, when the impurity of niddah started, mankind descended into a lower spiritual level, in which daas is not constant. In the current state, daas is sometimes active and sometimes it is not. When daas is in its revealed state, there is union between chochmah and binah, and when daas is not revealed, there is no union between chochmah and binah.

The simple understanding of this is that it is a punishment placed on mankind as a result of Adam and Chavah’s sin. But the deeper understanding, however, is that it is really “the remedy that comes from the wound.” The very fact that daas is sometimes active and sometimes not active, is the where the rectification lies.

In the initial and pure state of mankind, when chochmah and binah are united because of the constant daas, the daas is non-changing. Even in this state, there can be still times of greater daas and lesser daas, as the sefarim hakodeshim describe; but the daas itself is constant and intrinsic.

But after the sin, when it has now become possible that there are times in which there is no presence of daas, daas is no longer intrinsic; it is rather a levush, a “garment”, which is something that can be changed and removed. The current level of daas, therefore, is not the intrinsic level of daas, because it can change.

When Adam ate from the Eitz HaDaas, he thought that daas is the essence of reality. The way how the sin of Adam is rectified, thus, is when we reveal the understanding that our daas is not the essence of reality; it changes, and since it can change, our daas is to be viewed as a levush\garment. Something which is intrinsic cannot change; if something can change, it must be something that is not intrinsic.

So when they ate from the Eitz HaDaas, it was because they thought that daas is the ever-constant reality. The way the sin of Adam is rectified is when we reach the understanding that daas is but a levush\garment, and it is not intrinsic by essence. A levush, a garment, is something that is changed; “the clothing that one wears in the evening is not the clothing that one wears in the morning.”[2] A levush can be changed.

View Your Daas (Understanding) As A Garment of Reality

Thus, the way to rectify the sin of Adam is: “Go, eat your bread with joy, for G-d has already desired your deeds.” After Yom Kippur is over, a person is able to reveal the understanding that daas is a garment, and it is not the intrinsic reality.

Building The Sukkah on Motzei Yom Kippur

In Halacha[3], it is brought that on Motzei Yom Kippur, one should try to begin building the sukkah, at least minimally. The simple understanding of this is that we should immediately begin a mitzvah as soon as Yom Kippur ends.

But there is also a hidden meaning that lays in this. Of the mitzvah of sukkah, it is written, “So that the generations will know that on Sukkos I settled the children of Israel, when I took them out of the land of Egypt.” The Bach explains that normally, when it comes to all other mitzvos, we do not have to have intention for the reason of a mitzvah, but the mitzvah of sukkah is different – it requires one to have intention for the reason behind the mitzvah. This is because the Torah writes explicitly the reason for the mitzvah of Sukkos: “So that the generations will know that on Sukkos, I settled the children of Israel.”

Thus, sitting in the sukkah is about bringing one towards knowing\daas (“So that the generations will “know”); in the mitzvah of sukkah, the daas is part of the mitzvah.

When it comes to all other mitzvos, though, there is no requirement of daas. If one knows the reason for a mitzvah, that’s good too, but it’s not an intrinsic part of the mitzvah. Why? Because when it comes to all the other mitzvos, the main thing is to the mitzvah simply because it’s Hashem’s will that we do it. We don’t need more than that; we don’t need to understand.

But when it comes to the mitzvah of sitting in the sukkah, our daas plays a crucial role: we must understand the reason for the mitzvah of sukkah when we sit in the sukkah. With the mitzvah of sukkah, daas is an intrinsic part of the mitzvah.

Thus, there is a relationship between the concept of eating your bread with joy on Motzei Yom Kippur with the concept of building the sukkah on Motzei Yom Kippur. They are really the same concept. We have reached daas after Yom Kippur ends, and that is why we may eat on Motzei Yom Kippur.

“Go, eat” – in other words, don’t view daas as being intrinsic; rather, eat the bread of HaKadosh Baruch Hu: the “bread of Torah.”

“Go eat your bread with joy” – in other words, you can go and connect to your daas, for the spiritual light of Sukkos is beginning now to shine, which is about that the generations should “know.” This refers to the rectified kind of daas.

Sukkah is a levush over the entire person’s body. The mitzvos of Tefillin and Tzitzis are also a levush, but they only cover the person partially. The sukkah, however, covers a person entirely. Sukkah is thus the epitome of a levush. Of this levush, it is written: “So that the generations will know that on Sukkos, I settled the children of Israel.” This refers to rectified state of daas, which is parallel to Sukkos – a kind of daas which envelopes the entire person.

In the perfected kind of daas, the daas is not the essence of a person; rather, the daas is viewed as a levush over a person. This is exactly how the mitzvah of sukkah comes to rectify [the sin of Adam]: by revealing the perfected kind of daas.

The perfected kind of daas says that daas is not the intrinsic reality, for the intrinsic reality is only complete connection with Hashem; Hashem has ten garments for Himself (as sefer Psach Eliyahu describes), and daas is the garment of Hashem, so to speak. By contrast, the impaired kind of daas is when a person perceives daas as being his essence, as his “I” [when in fact the true “I” is HaKadosh Baruch Hu].

But when a person reveals the understanding that daas is but a levush on top of him and it is not his essence [for the essence of reality is Hashem, and not human understanding], this is the rectified kind of daas.

Conclusion

This is the secret of the perfected kind of daas which is revealed immediately on Motzei Yom Kippur: “Go eat your bread with joy.” Eating is a hint to daas; we can eat with the holy kind of daas. Eating is about connecting yourself to something, and connection involves your daas – but it can be the holy kind of daas.