The month of Tishrei is a journey for every Yid to straighten up his heart aligning it with the ratzon of Hashem. This journey commences on Rosh Hashanah when the mitzvah of the day is for one to accept upon himself the Kingdom of Hashem שתמליכוני עליכם. This act requires not merely lip service but also an arousal of emotion in one's heart. Firstly, one's acceptance must be rooted in a "sincere desire" to place himself under His subjugation. The term מלך differs from מושל in that a מלך rules by one's willful acceptance of the King which is in contrast to the title מושל which is by coercion. Secondly, our acceptance of Hashem as our King, partners with the blowing of the shofar which arouses the heart to emote feelings of awe towards this new relationship. In short, the first day of Tishrei we must already begin to refine our heart and its middos in order to correctly subjugate our lives to Hashem.

This concept is alluded to in the gematriah of לב with its inner letters ,למיד בית which adds up to the word מלכות. The heart is the organ which rules over one's body which serve as its servants. That is why it is situated in the middle of the body as the king is the central figure of his country. However, this gematriah which includes even the hidden letters of ,לב also demonstrate that a "full" heart with all its middos and desires are necessary for crowning Hashem as one's king.

However, not everyone is on the level to spiritually rehabilitate his heart to meet these requirements especially if he did not prepare himself for this goal during Elul. For every aveirah creates a kelipah which builds a wall separating one from getting closer to Hashem and from truly accepting His yoke upon himself. That is the reason why we are given a Yom Kippur to fix up any wrinkles in our hearts that are not on the same page that Hashem desires. The avodah of Yom Kippur is to recite ten times אשמנו and על חטא confessing our shortcomings. Each time we recite an aveirah we hit our hearts with our fists.

If the shofar was not enough to accept Hashem's Kingdom with our full hearts because the kellipos are holding us back from doing so, we now go further and attempt to knock out those hindrances that do not allow us to straighten out our hearts. That is why we begin the Yom Kippur avodah with the passuk אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב .שמחה Yom Kippur is the continuation of our process to perfect our hearts to be aligned fully with the ratzon of our King. Just like during our acceptance of Hashem as our King on Rosh Hashana our verbal acceptance was accompanied with the sounds of the shofar in order to simultaneously arouse our emotions, so too when we bang our hearts which caused us to sin we sing the אשמנו in order to stir our hearts to do teshuva and rid us from the tenacious grip of the kelipos which block our teshuva from becoming complete.

On Yom Kippur we strive to attain a similarity to malachim and therefore we recite then the ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו out loud. Reaching the state of malachim means we possess a לב אחד without a yetzer hara to restrain us from straightening our hearts as Rashi says Bereishis 18,5. This was the state of אדם prior to his chait as the gematriah conveys, לב אחד equals .אדם

Yet Hashem does not give up on any Yid and He gives us another chance to repair our hearts and accept Hashem whole heartedly on the Yom Tov of Succos אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה that after Yom Kippur when we strive to straighten our hearts we are given another opportunity to complete the job – Succos זמן שמחתינו .

On Succos we read Koheles in which we mention the word הבל (vanity) many times as the theme throughout the Megillah. The word הבל is הלב. It is with the reading of the Megillah that we talk to our hearts with mussar to rid ourselves from any pollution that might have gone unnoticed during the Yamim Noraim part of the Heart's process towards perfection.

On Succos we take the Four Minim upon which Chazal comment that they correspond to the Four major organs, the esrog being the symbol of the heart. It is called in the Torah פרי עץ הדר beautiful. One must strive to make his heart beautiful by cleansing it from any impressions or form of לאל אחר לא תשתחוה do not bow down before another deity, leaving the heart totally to ה' אחד the oneness of Hashem.This is hinted in the word הדר which equals אחר which teaches that one must transform his heart into being הצדיק which is also the same gematriah.
תניא רבי יוסי הגלילי אומר צדיקים יצר טוב שופטן שנאמר ולבי חלל בקרבי (Berachos 61b)

On Rosh Hashanah we thought about and even felt emotions from our hearts. On Yom Kippur we banged our hearts to rid of the aveiros and kelipos. On Succos we hold our hearts, symbolized by the esrog, physically in our hands checking and examining it carefully to be free from any flaws. By doing so, our examination of our heart's slightest blemish and flawed middos are processed objectively from the outside with a close up inspection instead of subjectively concealed in our bodies as we did during the Yamim Noraim.

Furthermore the Lulav which corresponds to the spine part of the body also spells לו לב to Him (Hashem) belongs my heart. The acronym of beseeching Hashem with וטהר לבנו לעבדך באמת which spells לולב, sends the message that we טהרת הלבon Succos.

The Lulav in the Torah is described in the term כפות תמרים a date palm. Concerning this tree Chazal comment Succah 45b

רבי לוי אומר כתמר מה תמר זה אין לו אלא לב אחד אף ישראל אין להם אלא לב אחד לאביהם
This tree appears to have only one heart to Hashem .(there are no branches spreading The word כפות means to be bound like Yitzchak at the Akaidah. This conveys that one's heart should be bound and only desire what Hashem desires. No instinctive reactions or impulsivities.

One of the mitzvos of Succos is ניסוך המים the water libations on the exterior altar whose measurements were 32 x 32 cubits which is two times the word לב. Shlomo Hamelech describes the heart as "waters of counsel" (Mishlei 20,5)

מים עמוקים עצה בלב איש ואיש תבונות ידלנה deep waters of counsel dwell in the heart of man and one who possesses understanding will draw them up. When we achieve טהרת הלב then we should ידלנה draw them up with a bucket. The word ידלנה is gematriah 99 the age that Avraham circumcised himself. The age 99 for Bris Milah is not random. The Bris Milah is not merely a ceremony to remove the foreskin ערלה covering the limb of procreation but rather a lifetime journey of ומלתם את ערלת לבבכם (Devarim 10,17) to circumcise one's orlah that lies on his heart. The word לבבכם with its five letters add up to 99. This is only made possible through Hashem's gift to us by blowing into man's nostrils the neshamah ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים. Without the influence of the neshamah this removal of the partition on one's heart would be impossible. The word באפיוis gematriah 99 in order to hint to this. The word סכה is the same gematriah of מילה which conveys that Succos is the time that gives one the segulah to remove the foreskin from one's heart.

The final Yom Tov of Tishrei is Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah when we finish reading the Torah and immediately start once again. This Yom Tov is called Atzeres which means to gather together assembling all our avodah of bringing shelaimus to our hearts in its mission to accept Hashem's Kinship upon ourselves. ויהי בישורון מלך בהתאסף ראשי עם יחד שבטי ישראל. On Simchas Torah we end reading the Torah with the letter ל and begin it again with the letter ב which together spell לב. The Sfas Emes writes
סוכות תרלה
ואהבת את ה' אלקיך בכל לבבך כו' נפשך כו' מאדך והיו הדברים האלה כו'. לבבך הוא בר"ה ועשי"ת שבנ"י שבים וחפצים לשעבד גם מחשבות הרעות להשי"ת. וזהו בשני יצריך. נפשך הוא ביוכ"פ ועניתם את נפשותיכם. מאדך הוא בסוכות זמן האסיף באספך כו' ואעפ"כ מניחין כל מאודיהם לישב בדירת ארעי ולחסות בצלו ית'. ואח"כ והיו הדברים האלה כו' על לבבך שאחר זה יכול אדם לקבל דברי תורה בלבו. והוא שמיני עצרת לעצור ולקבל הארת התורה בעומק הלב.

Simchas Torah is the fulfillment of והיו הדברים האלה על לבבך for the final deposit in the development of a pure heart will allow the Torah we learn to cling in our hearts.

Now let us see how the beginning of Beraishis continues with the developmental process of purifying one's heart
בראשית ברא אלק ים את השמים ואת הארץ
The first word of the Torah is בראשית whose root word is בראש . As we mentioned earlier, the spelling of הלב together with the value of its inner letters למיד בית and the kollel equal בראש. This is testimony that רחמנא ליבא בעי (Sanhedrin 106b) that בעולם העיקר טהרת הלב (Tzidkas Hatzadik 132) perfect the heart and remove its orlah.

The Torah begins with a בית רבתי an enlarged letter Bais. The Bnei Yissachar writes that the gematriah of בית רבתי is equal to לולב אתרוג הדס ערבה the Four Minim. According to what we said above this is to convey that the shelaimus of the heart is a priority as both the Lulav and Esrog specifically are associated with the טהרת הלב , and all four minim are connected to the Yom Tov of Succos which is the Yom Tov where this process starting from Rosh Hashanah hopefully sees it conclusion by reaching the goal.

The first Rashi in Chumash asks why begin the Torah with the creation of the world instead of mitzvos such as החודש הזה לכם . He answers to convey that since Hashem created the world and gave Eretz Yisrael to the Seven Nations who dwelled there at that time of history, He could nevertheless at any time remove it away from them and present it to Am Yisrael. The Ari writes that the Seven Nations of Eretz Yisrael symbolize the Seven Middos of the Sitrah Achra the opposite of the Seven Middos of Kedusha which are explained in detail by the Chozeh from Lublin. Rashi is making us aware that when we finish the last word of the Torah ישראל and begin the first word of the Torah בראשית with the letter ב, the end goal is to fix and perfect one's heart in the service of Hashem, Torah, Middos and Mitzvos. That as long as we posses the seven Middos of Kedusha in our hearts we will remain and dwell in Eretz Yisrael together with the presence of the Shechinah.

The Seven Ushpizin who visit us in our Succahs symbolize the Seven Middos of Kedusha. They come to help us acquire the highest levels for the purity of our hearts.

The Bnei Yissaschor Lag Baomer writes that Rabbe Yochanan Ben Zakai asked his five talmidim to look in the Torah and discover which is the דרך טובה in the world that one should strive to acquire. The middah of Lev Tov was chosen by Rabbe Eliezer Arach to which Rabbe Yochanan agreed. The reason why it was chosen is because from the beginning of the Torah until the first time the word טוב was mentioned we find thirty two words and hence לב טוב is the winner. Here again we see that it is the Middos Tovos that are created and excelled upon in the heart of a person which are tantamount to fulfilling one's mission in the world that Hashem placed him in. That is why we find the number of 49 days of Sefirah as preparation to receive the Torah since 49 is gematriah לב טוב.

And now to end this mamar with a fascinating story. The Maharshal Rav Shlomo Luria Rosh Yeshiva in Lublin lived in the 1500's. He was once asked by a man whose wife was just nifteres that before she died he promised her not to remarry but now he wants to renege on the promise. The Maharshal granted permission and right after he remarried he died. Before burying him, his widow came to the Maharshal and claimed that he caused her husband's death because of a wrong ruling. The Maharshal went to the Chevrah Kadisha and asked the head to take him to the coffin in which the departed was in. When the Maharshal came to the cemetery his coffin was opened and the Maharshal placed inside a paper with a written teshuva proving that the deceased had every right to renege on the oath that he gave to his departed wife. Movement and noise were suddenly heard from the coffin and the deceased was revivified from death.

Sooner than later the wife returned to the Maharshal with a further complaint that she cannot bear to live with someone who died. The Maharshal said to her I will take care of this problem as well and he davened to Hashem that she will forget that he even died. Her feelings were changed. It was said on the second episode that it was greater than the first miracle. For changing the heart of a person is greater than achieving a Techiyas Hameisim.

On Succos are hearts reached the final step in the changing of one's heart. With this we can understand why does Succos merit the segulah of Teshuvah from love which turns aveiros into mitzvos? The answer is drawn from this incredible story. An aveirah is a spiritual death. To turn the severe negative into holy mitzvos is a techiyas hameisim when all the departed will be resurrected with a completely rectified body better than it was ever. This teshuva from love comes from the process of purifying one's heart during Tishrei which is even greater than Techiyas Hameisim. So at least we deserve some manifestation of Techiyas Hameisim during Chag HaSuccos that of Teshuva from Ahava.

Secondly, we can now also understand why we daven for rain משיב ברוח ומוריד הגשם on Shemini Atzeres. The Vilna Gaon says the Chazal say (Taanis 7) the גבורות גשמים is equal to תחיית המתים because rain does not follow any logical pattern or law of nature and therefore it is equal to the unnatural miracle of Techiyas Hamaisim. This is why beseeching rain is placed in the beracha of Techiyas Hamaisim. This can be the reason why we recite it on Shemini Ateres for when we complete changing and purifying our hearts it is even greater than Techiyas Hamaisim so surely we can ask for it.

This explains an ancient minhag of Rishonim that after the Churban since there was no more a mizbaiach, on הושענא רבה they would walk around Har Hazaisim with their Four Minim. The word ישועה and הושענא refer to תחיית המתים. We find this connection in tefillah such as ואין דומה למושיענו בתחיית המתים or מחיה מתים אתה רב להושיע or מלך ממית ומחיה ומצמיח ישועה. So on the day when we begin to ask for rain we arouse in our bakashos that Hashem should bring on the awaited Techiyas Hamaisim as well, for after our hearts have changed we deserve Techiyas Hamaisim for sure. Happy journey!