Oct 14/06 — Shemini Atzeret: A Rest Before Resuming Unfinished Tasks

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker

Like the spring festival of Shavuot, Shemini Atzeret has a vague, indistinct quality about it, a lack of specificity that may seem unsettling. The description in Torah suggests that it is simply an additional day for the m’raglim—pilgrims—who were in Jerusalem in order to observe the Sukkot festival—to have an extra day of rest in the city, which surely was good for the local economy and for the physical and spiritual well-being of those whose harvest labours had concluded when Sukkot began.

But the ancient rabbis concluded that it was less an additional day of Sukkot than a completely separate and independent festival. For the Disapora, they added a yom tov sheni called Simchat Torah to it. Noting a certain analogy between Shemini Atzeret following Sukkot and Shavuot following upon Pesach, they referred to a Midrash that taught that Shemini Atzeret was to be separated from Sukkot by forty-nine day, which would have caused it to fall on the sixth of Kislev (November 27th this year)—and smack in the middle of the rainiest time of the year! The rabbis concluded that this represented an inappropriate hardship, since it would have meant a pilgrimage in the midst of the dangers of the rainy season. Humbly, they recognized and praised God, Who out of great wisdom elected to forgo a fourth, separate, distinct festival in favour of fastening Shemini Atzeret onto the end of Sukkot.

For this reason, the confusion over whether Shemini Atzeret ends Sukkot or is a separate festival is understandable. We might even speak of Judaism as having four pilgrimage festivals, not three: Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot...and Shemini Atzeret, with the last two being joined for practical reasons.

This seems to be sensible when we look upon the kiddush for each of the festivals, which declares that each is sacred as a zeycher lee-tziyat mitzrayim—a remembrance or memorial of the departure from Egypt. Its significance is elevated by this association, even though the stage directions written in Torah are less than clear about the function of the festival. In Mishnah the temptation to see Shemini Atzeret as an independent festival is addressed in confusing fashion by identifying it as YOM TOV acharon shehl ha-hag, THE LAST FESTIVAL DAY OF THE FEAST of Sukkot, but rabbinic commentary explicitly states that it should be seen as a separate festival, unconnected to the previous days of Sukkot, and marked by a set of features that communicate that it is a major, distinct holiday requiring special sacrifice, shehecheyanu, a distinctive psalm, and a special benediction.

One element of the connection between Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret is something that will happen on Friday—the observance of Hoshanah Rabbah. According to our traditions, Hoshanah Rabbah is the time when the final decision is made regarding each person’s fate during the year. God sets a seal upon the books of life and death. Some commentators suggested that Shemini hag ha-Atzeret is intended to remind us that we must accept the seriousness of the life choices we face. The answer to our prayers for life during the past weeks rests upon the whether we have pursued teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, the process of soul-searching, repair of our relationships, and a commitment to do better with our lives. This is the critical moment of thanksgiving for every good that we can remember having performed—Shemini Atzeret is our moment for pausing to recognize the blessings we have brought into the lives of those we love and respect.

Whatever comes next will test our resolve—whether we can respond with fullness of spirit, and inner confidence. But the quality of our response to life is determined not by God, but rather by the decisions we have made.

There’s an old story about a wealthy businessman whose investments kept growing and making increasing demands on his time and energy. Finally his health was seriously affected. When his doctor asked him why he was doing this to himself, he replied, “When I was growing up, we had nothing. I always worried as a child that we wouldn’t have enough for food, for clothes, for shoes. Now I worry that I have so much that someone or something will take it all away from me.” Overwork and worry led to the feeling that life was too much. The man suffered from depression, paranoia, and despair. His doctor urged him to see a local psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist spent an hour with the businessman and then prescribed the following: “First of all, find time during your day to relax. Stop going to your office and pursuing your responsibilities for so many hours of the day. Take a leisurely walk each morning. Stop listening to the obsessive ranting of people who want you to suffer and feel fear and who want to drive you into overwork. Who are they to tell you the scope of your job? Cut down on your work load. And—I want you to spend one hour each week in your synagogue’s cemetery.”

“What do you mean, ‘spend one hour each week in the synagogue’s cemetery’?!”

The psychiatrist replied, “That is so that you can become better acquainted with the people who lie there. They didn’t finish their work either. Nobody does, you know.”

Similar sound advice is available of course in Jewish tradition. God wants us to linger for an extra day after the rigours of the fall holy day season. Why? Because of an insight we find in Pirkei Avot, “the Ethics of the Fathers,” attributed to Rabbi Tarfon:

“Lo alayech ha’mlachah ligmor”—“The work is not yours to complete.”

But where the psychiatrist’s advice ends at that point, Rabbi Tarfon has a bit more to offer in the conclusion of advice:

“…v’loh atah ben horin l’hibateyl mimenhal”—
“…but neither are you free to neglect it.”

Rabbi Tarfon insists that we know that real life offers us no holiday away from responsibility. Eliminating ALL obligations can be as bad as having too many and can bring on terrible unhappiness and depression. That is why the same Rabbi Tarfon taught that “The day is short, the work is abundant, the workers are lax, the reward is great, but the Master [God] keeps urging us on.”

Shemini Atzeret, an extension of our holy days of rest, fades away and we turn to the tasks of Jewish living in every moment. Shemini Atzeret reminds us to cherish our moment of rest and then return wholeheartedly to the unfinished business of life. And God, our teacher, stands by watching how well we have learned from the passing cycle of fall holy days.

Shabbat Shalom.