תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה’ אלקיך בשמחה ובטוב לב (כי תבא כח:מז)

Reb Chanoch Henich of Alexander zt’’l explained this passuk with a story that occurred to a farmer whose child refused to learn Torah, he didn’t even know what the letters of the Aleph Beis looked like. The farmer once traveled to the city and met a Yid who appeared to be a talented Melamed -teacher, who said that he succeeded in teaching every child he taught. The villager hired him to come teach his son, with the hope to derive nachas from him.

It took a long time until the melamed finally succeeded in teaching the farmer’s son the aleph beis and nekudos. The father’s joy was boundless. He was so excited to come see it for himself and derive pleasure from the fruits of his labor.

The melamed pointed with his finger to the blackboard where large aleph beis letters were written and the child answered correctly on the spot. The father shed tears of joy. Then the melamed asked the child, “what nekuda is under the aleph?” And the child didn’t answer. He continued asking until the letter ‘hey’, but the child refused to answer. The melamed repeated a few times, “what is under the”ה ” ? but the child remained mute, he didn’t want to answer. The father told his child? “Nu, why aren’t you saying anything?” The child timidly replied: “Do you let me say?”

“Sure you should say, what is the question?!”

“I didn’t want to say because I understood that you don’t want anyone to know, but if you command me to say I will say that under the ‘Hey” – stall, lay the stolen calf.”

The farmer became red from embarrassment, now he understood why his son refused to talk….

Reb Chanoch Henoch explained this is passuk. Why do we deserve such a punishment that we don’t have joy, it’s not the simcha, it’s what lies behind it תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה’ אלקיך בשמחה – if we don’t serve Hashem with simcha, it means that something much worse is buried underneath and therefore we are not serving Him with joy.