Cantor's Corner by Eric Schulmiller

The Long, Slow, Goodbye

While in the real world, the aphorism, "fish and houseguests go bad after three days" may hold true, but in the world of Jewish ritual, we love to linger a little longer. By the time you crack open this month’s issue of the Shaliyah, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will have passed, and Sukkot will be just winding down. We will celebrate Simchat Torah in typically joyous fashion on Wednesday night, October 6^th, and then, on the 7^th, comes one of the least understood Jewish holidays: Shemini Atzeret.

The biblical origins of Shemini Atzeret are pretty straightforward: It’s the 8^th day of the seven day festival of Sukkot. Huh?? In the Torah (Leviticus 23:36), after describing the seven day festival of Sukkot, the text simply says, "On the eighth day you shall observe a sacred assembly and bring a fire-offering to The Eternal One; it is a solemn gathering (Heb. Atzeret, meaning, to "hold back") you shall not work at your occupations." In Numbers, the sacrifices for this day are listed, but none of the rituals for Sukkot (lulav, etrog, dwelling in the sukkah) apply to this mysterious one-day festival.

The most practical way to understand this extra-day festival is as a coda to Sukkot, much as Shavuot is often seen as a coda to Pesach (the Talmudic rabbis even refer to Shavuot as "Atzeret!"). The difference is, Shavuot comes seven weeks and one day after Pesach, while Shemini Atzeret comes the seven days and one day after the beginning of Sukkot! Why so soon? Well, the end of Sukkot traditionally ushers in the rainy season in Israel (an annual prayer for rain is actually the only remaining unique piece of liturgy for Shemini Atzeret), so to expect Jews to slog back to Jerusalem in the rain and the mud, weeks after they had just arrived for Sukkot would be impractical, to say the least. So this coda to Sukkot comes immediately after the seven day holiday, in order to ease the strain on the visiting farmers and their families.

A more romantic explanation for this extra day of celebration was put forward by the ever-imaginative rabbis of the Talmud. They understood the word "Atzeret" to mean "lingering," and envisioned God as a loving host, reluctant to part with God’s treasured house-guests! Even after the seven-day party of Sukkot had ended, the rabbis imagined God imploring the celebrants to stay "just one more day." No sukkah, no lulav or etrog, just a chance to "hang out," and spend some "quality time" together.

Of course, by the middle-ages, this festival was eclipsed by Simchat Torah, which was created as a way to differentiate the second-day of Shemini Atzeret that was observed, as with all festivals in the diaspora, creating a maddening second day of an one-day celebration that was the eighth-day finale of a seven-day festival!! No wonder Jews are so good at math! Since many liberal Jewish communities in the diaspora only observe one day of festivals (as is done in Israel), Simchat Torah has all but eradicated the uniqueness of Shemini Atzeret from our calendar. All that remains is a recitation of the prayer for rain, and the observance of Yizkor.

If we can view Shemini Atzeret, as Arthur Waskow has suggested in his exquisite, "Seasons of our Joy" as the festival that begins the process of storing away for the long winter ahead – storing our crops, our stories, and our memories, then all of these facets can come together to elucidate the deeper meaning of this festival. It is a day when we honor our tears – tears of rain, tears of memory, tears of departure and tears of nostalgia. The prayer for rain traditionally petitions God by waxing nostalgic about all of the water that God had utilized throughout our history – at creation, Noah’s flood, at the desert wells where our forefathers met our foremothers, at the splitting of the Sea, and the water used by the priests for purification in the Temple service.

On Shemini Atzeret, we stay at "God’s place" for an extra cup of coffee, open up the family album (the Torah), and look back on all the baby pictures and wedding photos, and then forward to the new pictures that echo the old, to be added in the coming year. Then, finally, with a tearful yet happy goodbye, we make our way into the cold night, warmed by the memories and friendships that will sustain us in the long months ahead, before the lights of Chanukah beckon us from the heart of winter.