Joy awakened through the longing of galus

דרך הלצה לרבות לילי יו"ט האחרון הוא כמו באחרית הימים.

By way of a playful homiletic, the nights of the final Yom Tov correspond to the End of Days.

The Sefas Emes reads the last days of the festival as a hint to acharis hayamim, the final era of history when the light is hidden as if it were night.

בגלות שהימים דומין ללילות.

In galus, when the days resemble nights.

In exile even the bright, revealed times feel dark, because Hashem's presence is concealed.

אעפ"כ מבטיח הכתוב שנוכל לעורר השמחה.

Nevertheless, the verse assures us that we are able to awaken the simchah.

Even within that darkness of galus, the Torah promises that we can still arouse genuine joy.

והיית כמו נהיית ונחלת.

"And you shall be as you once were" — as you became and as you inherited.

The simchah we awaken now restores us to the original state we once held, the inheritance that is always ours.

גם אך כמ"ש חז"ל אך נח שהי' גונח וצועק.

Also the word "akh" (only), as Chazal expounded: "akh Noach" — that Noach was groaning and crying out.

Chazal read the limiting word "akh" by Noach in the teivah as a sign of his groaning and crying out in distress; the Sefas Emes will apply this to the limited simchah of galus.

פי' שע"י השפלות בגלות ומתאוננין על איבוד השמחה.

The meaning is that through the lowliness of galus, when we lament over the loss of simchah —

Precisely the shiflus (lowliness) of exile, and our pained longing for the joy we have lost, becomes the doorway.

ע"י זה יכולין להרגיש קצת שמחה.

through this we are able to feel a measure of simchah.

The very yearning for joy, born of crying out over its absence, itself generates a real taste of that joy.

כי במקום קרבנות המוספין אומרים היום ומפני חטאינו.

For in place of the Mussaf korbanos we now say "Today" and "Because of our sins."

Lacking the Bais Hamikdash and its korbanos, we substitute the tefillah of "Umipnei chatageinu," confessing that our sins caused the exile.

שמצפין לחזור להשי"ת ומעוררין בזה השמחה.

For we look forward to returning to Hashem, and through this we awaken the simchah.

That very tefillah expresses our yearning for teshuvah and geulah, and the longing to return to Hashem itself kindles joy.

לכן אך לשון מיעוט שאין השמחה בשלימות כנ"ל:

Therefore "akh" is a term of limitation, for the simchah is not yet complete, as explained above.

The limiting word "akh" teaches that in galus our joy, though real, remains incomplete until the full geulah.

Summary: Even in galus, where the festive light is dimmed to a kind of night, the very lowliness and longing of exile — expressed in our tefillos of teshuvah — awakens a genuine, if incomplete, simchah, hinted at by the limiting word "akh."