I find that the more holy the day or season, any time we are enjoined to be happy, the Yetzer Hara will go to great lengths to pull me down. The seforim all say that when we say that a Tom Tov is a "zman" for something, it means that this time is segulah from Heaven to acquire that specific item.
Sukkos is called "a time for our rejoicing" - meaning, that this is when they hand out out joy/simcha. The question that I ask myself is, why do I feel that I'm missing the ability to acquire this tremendous Heavenly gift?
Why am I mired in the petty worries of the solvency of my bank account? Why can't I internalize all the lofty concepts of the Sukkka?
Why am I stuck with all the petty resentments of my day to day life? What happened to all the lofty ideas that I read and learn about in the holy seforim?
I can read all these noble lofty thoughts of bitachon, I can even teach them convincingly to others, yet when it comes time to "putting the rubber to the road", why am I left face to face with little ol' me?
WHY? WHY? WHY?
I know that Dov who works the 12-Steps, said recently that "Life gets good in a hurry when we are living for the right reasons, even if we are not doing it perfectly". But how in the world is the 12 steps going to meet my payroll?? ...The Big Book don't talk about the aforementioned banks, suppliers and customers!
I'm would like to share with you, Noorah, that there is not much written in the AA "Big Book" about not drinking, not much in the 12-Steps about not lusting, and b"H there is not much space in my head given to how not be'simcha I am feeling this Sukkos so far.
It's ALL about the resentments, ALL about the horrible customers, ALL about the fears, worries, and nuttiness of life. That is what the steps are ONLY about. Finding sanity in a beis medrash (or a test tube) is not going to do me much good in real life if I'm out of the beis medrash.
Living the "good life" isn't about having it "good", it is about really having it - whatever it really is, then owning it, and learning how to let Hashem work with us to live it right. Then, it gets "good" in a hurry.
And, by the way, "being left with little ol' me" is actually huge. You are not running into fantasy (which is something I have done hundreds, maybe thousands, of times). It may not be pretty, but it is the only game in town. Now play it.
- Dov
P.S. All the brocha of the years and years that Hashem loved us in the desert with those clouds, the mon and the sukkas; that huge older generation was dying-out slowly under the heavy gezeira of the cheit haeygel and meraglim. That was the setting for the training-period of the next generation. It was not pleasant, and not idyllic, to be sure. But the love of Hashem was still there. They were surrounded by the clouds of glory and getting the mon each morning! So they just focused on the positive, did their jobs, and grew.
P.P.S. My apologies if what I wrote did not sound loving, but it is the best I have for you, chaver, and I do love you.
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