Stop!
In the Name of Love
“On the eight day you shall have a solemn assembly; you shall do no servile work….” Numbers, 29:35
Shemini Atzeres is probably the least understood day of the holiday season, and it’s easy to see why. No shofar, no fast, no sukkah or lulav, besides the fact that its almost completely overshadowed by the customs of Simchas Torah. After the preceding twenty-one days of intense spiritual experiences, how are we to appreciate Shemini Atzeres?
While it may seem anti-climatic to end the holiday season with a day that gives us no unique mitzvah, it is exactly that very quality which is the essence of this special day.
Each of the preceding holidays centered around mitzvos which afford us specific spiritual opportunities for growth. I.e. the shofar is meant to bring us into a state of awesome awareness that God is the ultimate Reality; the confession and fasting of Yom Kippur enable us to cleanse ourselves from the mistakes which occlude our spirit; and after we’ve successfully accomplished these two, we celebrate as God's "bride" in the shade of His Presence in the Sukka.
These positive mitzvos are means of expression, however they are like acts in a play, each of them climaxing with a dramatic point. When we have lived through a meaningful holiday season, we have traveled far emotionally and spiritually, and Shemini Atzeres is our "happily ever after." That is to say, it is our sense of settling in as it were with God for the good year ahead of us. We need to decompress before we can re-enter the non-holiday world, to "chill out" with the Almighty in the peace of a pure day of rejoicing with the Holy for its own sake.
The word atzeres from which Shemini Atzeres gets its name means a gathering or assembly, as in the above translation, but the root of the word atzor means to stop. Shemini Atzeres – the epilogue of the long and intense holiday season – is a day to stop and gather together the spiritual growth of the 21 days which preceded it.
Shemini Atzeres is like a basket within which we can gather the fruits of inspiration and change we picked along the way. The holidays before Shemini Atzeres re-created our relationship with God and the world around us, so that now we see things in a new way. Before we can go back into the workaday world, we have one more holy day of simply living with our new insights. In order to take the impact of the holidays with us into the new year, we first gather them up and hold onto them – savoring them for a day.
We can appreciate this more when we consider the following saying of the Sages:
Any love which is dependent on something, when the 'something' ceases, the love ceases. Any love which is not dependent on anything will never cease. Pirkei Avot, 5:19
On the simple level, the above is referring to relationships between people. However, we can also understand it on what is perhaps a deeper level, which will give us a deeper appreciation for the non-action of Shemini Atzeres.
Positive mitzvos create specific avenues through which to express our love for God.
This is great for us, because it allows us to sanctify every aspect of our life. A living relationship with God touches every part of our day. Each and every mitzvah connects us to the Creator through our free-will decisions to express the Divine will as our own.
The Torah teaches us that God desires us to do good, and by choosing to do so, we in some sense express a kindness towards Him, so to speak. We become God’s partners, repairing and perfecting creation. However, each act of mitzvah is specific, in the sense that is has a specific way it expresses itself. We blow a shofar, we express a confession etc. But on Shemini Atzeres we express our love for God without dependence on any act – we simply live with God.
The deepest level of love requires no gifts, no words, and no expression whatsoever.
It is an attachment so deep that it is impossible to even imagine existing without the other – there is no sense of being if we are separated from the other. When we can sit in the presence of our loved one, not needing to say anything or do anything, we can feel this level of connection.
This is the love of Shemini Azteres. It cannot be contained within a particular mitzvah, because it is not a particular expression of love – it is love itself.
On Rosh Hashanah we became aware that God is the Only Power, the true King.
On Yom Kippur we removed the obstacles that stood in the way of our relationship with God.
And on Sukkos we rejoiced with the beautiful harvest blessings that God has bestowed us with.
On Shemini Atzeres we have grown past the need for expression, we can allow ourselves to simply be with God – realizing that having Him in our lives is the best and happiest life that we can choose.
And perhaps this gives us an insight into the celebration of Simchas Torah as well.
After all, our celebration of Simchas Torah is a custom and not a Biblical holiday.
Simchas Torah does not celebrate that we received the Torah – we do that on Shavuos.
Simchas Torah rather celebrates having the Torah.
We complete the Torah reading on Simchas Torah, but much more than being a people who have completed a book, we celebrate being a people who are completed by the Book.
Being the People of the Book is who we are.
When we gather together the mitzvos – all of them at once rolled up in the Torah scroll, we find that this is the essence of life itself, and so we dance with the Torah, dancing with life itself.
Shemini Atzeres is probably the least understood day of the holiday season, and it’s easy to see why. No shofar, no fast, no sukkah or lulav, besides the fact that its almost completely overshadowed by the customs of Simchas Torah. After the preceding twenty-one days of intense spiritual experiences, how are we to appreciate Shemini Atzeres?
While it may seem anti-climatic to end the holiday season with a day that gives us no unique mitzvah, it is exactly that very quality which is the essence of this special day.
Each of the preceding holidays centered around mitzvos which afford us specific spiritual opportunities for growth. I.e. the shofar is meant to bring us into a state of awesome awareness that God is the ultimate Reality; the confession and fasting of Yom Kippur enable us to cleanse ourselves from the mistakes which occlude our spirit; and after we’ve successfully accomplished these two, we celebrate as God's "bride" in the shade of His Presence in the Sukka.
These positive mitzvos are means of expression, however they are like acts in a play, each of them climaxing with a dramatic point. When we have lived through a meaningful holiday season, we have traveled far emotionally and spiritually, and Shemini Atzeres is our "happily ever after." That is to say, it is our sense of settling in as it were with God for the good year ahead of us. We need to decompress before we can re-enter the non-holiday world, to "chill out" with the Almighty in the peace of a pure day of rejoicing with the Holy for its own sake.
The word atzeres from which Shemini Atzeres gets its name means a gathering or assembly, as in the above translation, but the root of the word atzor means to stop. Shemini Atzeres – the epilogue of the long and intense holiday season – is a day to stop and gather together the spiritual growth of the 21 days which preceded it.
Shemini Atzeres is like a basket within which we can gather the fruits of inspiration and change we picked along the way. The holidays before Shemini Atzeres re-created our relationship with God and the world around us, so that now we see things in a new way. Before we can go back into the workaday world, we have one more holy day of simply living with our new insights. In order to take the impact of the holidays with us into the new year, we first gather them up and hold onto them – savoring them for a day.
We can appreciate this more when we consider the following saying of the Sages:
Any love which is dependent on something, when the 'something' ceases, the love ceases. Any love which is not dependent on anything will never cease. Pirkei Avot, 5:19
On the simple level, the above is referring to relationships between people. However, we can also understand it on what is perhaps a deeper level, which will give us a deeper appreciation for the non-action of Shemini Atzeres.
Positive mitzvos create specific avenues through which to express our love for God.
This is great for us, because it allows us to sanctify every aspect of our life. A living relationship with God touches every part of our day. Each and every mitzvah connects us to the Creator through our free-will decisions to express the Divine will as our own.
The Torah teaches us that God desires us to do good, and by choosing to do so, we in some sense express a kindness towards Him, so to speak. We become God’s partners, repairing and perfecting creation. However, each act of mitzvah is specific, in the sense that is has a specific way it expresses itself. We blow a shofar, we express a confession etc. But on Shemini Atzeres we express our love for God without dependence on any act – we simply live with God.
The deepest level of love requires no gifts, no words, and no expression whatsoever.
It is an attachment so deep that it is impossible to even imagine existing without the other – there is no sense of being if we are separated from the other. When we can sit in the presence of our loved one, not needing to say anything or do anything, we can feel this level of connection.
This is the love of Shemini Azteres. It cannot be contained within a particular mitzvah, because it is not a particular expression of love – it is love itself.
On Rosh Hashanah we became aware that God is the Only Power, the true King.
On Yom Kippur we removed the obstacles that stood in the way of our relationship with God.
And on Sukkos we rejoiced with the beautiful harvest blessings that God has bestowed us with.
On Shemini Atzeres we have grown past the need for expression, we can allow ourselves to simply be with God – realizing that having Him in our lives is the best and happiest life that we can choose.
And perhaps this gives us an insight into the celebration of Simchas Torah as well.
After all, our celebration of Simchas Torah is a custom and not a Biblical holiday.
Simchas Torah does not celebrate that we received the Torah – we do that on Shavuos.
Simchas Torah rather celebrates having the Torah.
We complete the Torah reading on Simchas Torah, but much more than being a people who have completed a book, we celebrate being a people who are completed by the Book.
Being the People of the Book is who we are.
When we gather together the mitzvos – all of them at once rolled up in the Torah scroll, we find that this is the essence of life itself, and so we dance with the Torah, dancing with life itself.