Festival Prayer-Simcha

The Chatam Sofer once observed that a student of his hardly smiled and never seemed to enjoy life. He ordered the student to stop reading moralistic works for a time. “If it makes you so miserable,” the Rabbi exclaimed, “there’s something wrong with it.”

“And You gave us, God, our Lord, with love [Shabbat for rest], appointed festivals for joy.” We are instructed to use the holidays as a time of joy, not to suffer under the heaviness of stringencies with the laws that can limit our joyful experience.