Following Sukkot, the Torah tacks on an additional gathering for a festival known as the Assembly of the Eighth Day, Shemini Atzeret. It is notable for two things: Yizkor, and a prayer for rain.
The Yizkor memorial service is included in the festival service four times a year: On Yom Kippur, and at or near the end of each of the Pilgrimage festivals. The prayer for rain coincides with the beginning of the rainy season in Israel. It is included at the end of the fall holidays after Sukkot, because we don’t want to pray for rain while we are sitting in our flimsy, leaky Sukkah, so we wait until Sukkot ends.
The Torah, however, does not tell us specifically what this holiday is for. We know Passover is all about freedom, Shavuot is about Torah (although in the Torah, Shavuot is about first fruits and the barley harvest), and Sukkot is all about the fall harvest. We don’t really have a solid hook to hang Shemini Atzeret on.
I’m writing this article just days before Rosh Hashanah, knowing that you’ll likely read it just days before Shemini Atzeret. I’m feeling the exhaustion of preparation for the month of holidays and holiday events, and the classes and events that follow. I know that four weeks from now, I’m going to feel completely drained from building my Sukkah, carrying meals and eating out in the Sukkah for a week, cooking for our congregational Sukkot lunch and dinner. And yet I need to raise my energy level one more time.
That’s Shemini Atzeret. In today’s calendar, it opens with quiet energy, but then explodes into a holiday finale, as the second day of Shemini Atzeret becomes Simhat Torah. But that’s a relatively recent innovation. The Biblical Shemini Atzeret was the conclusion of the holiday season. It’s the quiet vacation that you need after a wild, busy, action-packed vacation. It’s the extra day off you planned into your calendar the day after you return from vacation. One more day to sleep in and relax before jumping back into your life with both feet.
Shemini Atzeret is the hidden day off after Sukkot, after Yom Kippur, after Rosh Hashanah. It’s a brief delay before taking down the Sukkah (Sunday, October 11, 1:30 p.m., please help!) and the scholar in residence weekend (October 23-25, I hope you’ll come to the weekend’s events). I hope you’ll join us for the Shemini Atzeret service, Saturday morning, October 3. Hag Sameah!
