BEAUTY CONTINUED, WITH JOY

Dear Family,

I hope that everyone is well and has had an inspiring Yom Kippur.

I saw a beautiful vort from Likutei Levi Yitzchak, linking Rosh Hashanah and Sukkos as follows

SHOFAR has a derivation from the Arameic word shufrei, meaning splendor or BEAUTY.

On Rosh Hashanah we ask Hashem to ‘Reveal Yourself in the beauty (HADAR) of Your Exalted Might….’

And on Sukkos we take the ESROG (pri etz HADAR) where here it again means beautiful.

The Talmud in Sukkah mentions that hadar also means ‘the one that dwells’. This is referring to the fact that, unlike other fruits, the esrog remains on its parent tree for the full 12 months of the year, thereby enabling it to develop fully and become beautiful.

And as a follow up of our email before Rosh Hashanah, just as Rivka Imeinu’s mother and brother asked Eliezer to allow them 12 months for pre wedding preparations to yield the accessories and ornaments that bring out her inner beauty, so too, Rosh Hashanah, heralded by the shofar, leading to the hadar of the esrog, encapsulate and make possible a shining and beautiful year.

The words used by Rivka's mother and brother were…..achar telech (afterwards she can go), which has the numerical value of 659. This is exactly equal to the numerical value of Torah's name for the esrog of pri etz hadar!

Wishing everyone a Gut Shabbos and a beautiful Sukkos, the Festival of JOY