Refined joy born of awe

והיית אך שמח לרבות לילי יום טוב האחרון.

"And you shall be only joyful" (Devarim 16:15) — to include the night of the final Yom Tov.

Chazal derive from the word "only" that the obligation of simchah extends even to the night of the last day of the festival, Shemini Atzeres. The Sefas Emes will probe why the joy of this day is described with the limiting word "only."

כי על ידי הכ"א ימים מר"ה עד שמיני עצרת נתברר עתה השמחה.

For through the twenty-one days from Rosh Hashanah until Shemini Atzeres, the joy is now refined and made clear.

The twenty-one days running from Rosh Hashanah through Shemini Atzeres are a process of clarification; the simchah that emerges at the end has been purified by everything that came before.

כמ"ש בתנא דב"א שמחתי מתוך יראתי כו'.

As stated in the Tanna d'Vei Eliyahu: "I rejoiced from within my fear..."

True joy is born out of yiras Shomayim. The Tanna d'Vei Eliyahu teaches that simchah which grows out of awe is of a higher order than ordinary happiness.

שהשמחה הבאה ע"י יראה היא זכה וברורה.

For the joy that comes by way of fear is pure and clear.

Joy that has passed through yirah is refined of any coarse, self-serving element — it is a clarified, transparent simchah.

ואך הוא לשון בירור כמו אך את הזהב להעביר החלודה כו'.

And "only" (ach) is a term of refinement, as in "only the gold" (Bamidbar 31:22) — to remove the rust.

The word ach connotes separating out the pure from the dross, just as gold is purified by removing its corrosion. So "you shall be ach (only) joyful" means a joy that has been refined clean.

והיית מלשון נהייתי ונחלתי שזאת השמחה באה ע"י הדינים שעברו בא"ך ימים הקודמים.

And "you shall be" (v'hayisa) is from the language of "I was undone and made ill" (Daniel 8:27) — for this joy comes by way of the judgments that passed in the preceding twenty-one days.

The Sefas Emes reads v'hayisa as related to being broken down and emptied out. The simchah of Shemini Atzeres is reached only after a person has been worn through the dinim (judgments) of the Days of Awe — joy on the far side of being undone.

והכל הי' כדי שיתברר יום שמ"ע לטוב בצינעא כמ"ש בכסה ליום חגינו וד"ל:

And all of this was so that the day of Shemini Atzeres should be clarified for the good, in concealment, as it is written: "at the covered time for the day of our festival" (Tehillim 81:4) — and this is enough for the wise to grasp.

The whole process of judgment serves to refine the hidden, intimate joy of Shemini Atzeres. Like the moon "covered" on the festival, this good is reached in concealment — a quiet, private simchah earned through the awe and dinim that preceded it.

Summary: The "only joyful" of the final Yom Tov is a refined joy. The twenty-one days from Rosh Hashanah, with their fear and judgments, purify a person so that the hidden, intimate simchah of Shemini Atzeres emerges clear and clean — joy born of yirah and reached on the far side of being broken down.