A Rabbi once entered a very busy gas station in the beginning of one of the holiday seasons. After waiting a while for gas, the gas station attendant came to his window and commented, “I don’t know why people wait till the last minute, when they knew they were going to take their trips weeks ago!”
The Rabbi smiled and said, “In my line of business we run into the same problem all the time.”
Harav Moshe Feinstein zt”l (Kol Ram, Succos) says that there is a distinction in the language of the pasuk by the Yom Tov of Succos that we don’t find by other Yomim Tovim of the year. The pasuk (Vayikra 23:41) says: וחגתם אותו חג לה' שבעת ימים בשנה – “for seven days in the year you shall make it a festival.” Why does the pasuk, specifically by the Yom Tov of Succos, use the word בשנה - in the year? We don’t find by Pesach that the pasuk says seven days a year you shall eat matzos, or one day a year you shall blow shofar! Rav Moshe says that specifically by Succos the Torah is telling us that the point of the mitzvah is to implement in our lives – the entire year – that everything on this world is only short-term. Having this on our minds, we will not busy ourselves with the pleasures of this world, only waking up at “the last minute” to serve Hashem. Rather, we will occupy ourselves with Torah and mitzvos every minute of our lives!
