Lead Tidbit
The Key (no) - Part of the Key (better, but...) - Two Different Keys (yes, this one)

Personal time again. Please join me on a train of thought. The thoughts that make up this Lead Tidbit started on Yom Kippur, when I pondered the fact that Shabbat "knocked out" a few Avinu Malkeinus and some other prayers that we could have used. What did Shabbat offer to compensate us? One word hit me: B'AHAVA. We said (five times over YK) that G-d gave us Shabbat and Yom Kippur with love and that Yom Kippur was the day of pardon, forgiveness, and atonement... and to pardon all our sins B'AHAVA. This additional B'AHAVA is added on Shabbat, and can be seen as an extra measure of love from G-d. Not only does He lovingly give us Yom Kippur as a day of forgiveness, but He forgives us with love. Think about it. That's a big additional step. Then my thoughts included the previous paragraph in the Amida - You chose us from among all the nations, You loved us... Add then the daily statements of Ahava Rabba and Ahavat Olam. That love from G-d is mutual (supposed to be), as we see in the daily twice (at least) recited SH'MA - And you shall love G-d...

From here, the thoughts jump - no, not jump, flow from mutual love between G-d and the Jew, to SIMCHA. The love with which He gives us Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur and the process of T'shuva, smoothly point the way to ZMAN SIMCHATEINU, the time of our joy. Sukkot allows the blossoming of our Love of G-d through the joy we find in the fulfillment of the mitzvot of the period and our ability to see the continuum of our relationship with G-d through the YIR'A (fear and reverence) of the Yamim Nora'im to the AHAVA and SIMCHA of CHATIMAT HADIN on Hoshana Rabba and the joyous celebration of Torah on Simchat Torah.

That, I thought, was the key. But then I thought of the funerals that continue to take place, the bombings and the rockets. So I thought I had only part of the key. And then I realized what the other, different key is. We said it enough times over YK. HANISTAROT LASHEM ELOKEINU. We do not know everything. But we do know (should know) beyond a doubt, the love and joy of our relationship with G-d.

Here's where the train of thought will stop, let you disembark, and hopefully allow you to catch your own train and see where it takes you.

When things that happen clash with a feeling of love of G-d and/or impede one's feelings of simcha, then the lack of understanding of what's happening means that AHAVA and SIMCHA are only "part of the key". But when we understand that we cannot under- stand everything, that there are mysteries that are G-d's and not revealed to us, then that belief and confidence in HANISTAROT, then it becomes a different but other key, complementing the first key of AHAVA and SIMCHA, to enrich, rather than detract, from our celebration of ZMAN SIMCHATEINU.