Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Shmini Atzeres -- Serving HaShem Without Props

I get a daily halacha email from the Dirshu organization; great way to get a tour or Mishna Brura. Occasionally they will also include a very nice "vort" about the auspicious occasion in which we find ourselves and proffer a new perspective. For example, they recently discussed a point about the holiday of Shmini Atzeres. As is well known, Chazal understand Shmini Atzeres as our Father who is our King saying to us, "I find separation from you very difficult, please stay one more day." Very nice... but if that's the whole issue, then why not make Sukkos a day longer? Moreover... um... we aren't really going anywhere, right? So why do we need a whole new Yom Tov -- with it's own kiddush, sh'he'chiyanu, musaf, etc. Just make Sukkos one day longer and the situation will have been addressed. Right?

Obviously this Chazal is meant to convey something quite profound about Shmini Atzeres. The short answer is that we have had six weeks of focussing on our connection to and relationship with HaShem. Our relationship on a personal and national level. A month of shofar and special penitential prayers culminating in Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur. Then a week of physically moving out of our homes into a hut built whose main feature is that it must be roofed by the stuff we usually discard; quite literally taking our whole body into nature.  We further -- again, quite literally -- take nature in our hands and perform a sort of dance with lulav, esrog, willow, and myrtle as the focal point of our service.

So what is Shmini Atzeres all about? Why does it need to be whole new holiday? Shofar, slichos, fasting, sukkah, lulav -- lots of props, whose sole purpose is to enable increased intimacy in our relationship with HaShem and His Torah; to help us make HaShem and His Torah our whole world. What is missing?

The intent of all these ceremonies and activities -- the dance, if you will -- is not the dance, but the resulting intimacy. Shmini Atzeres has no special mitzvos; which is what makes it so special. Now, as we come to the finale of the High Holiday season, HaShem says, "We have gotten so close over these last couple of months. I would hate for us to drift apart now that the excitement is over. Please stay one more day -- no props, no dance, no hoopla; just you with Me".

 I said this over to a few friends. One said that he had heard a similar idea about חשון -- aka מרחשון -- a month with no holidays. It is, of course, no accident that חשון -- aka מרחשון -- comes on the heels of the Yamim Nora'im, The vort is the same: take away the props and hoopla, take the growth you have achieved and apply it to living in the world during "ordinary" times.

Although Covid-19 may have shown us that there is really no such thing as "ordinary" times -- but that's a thought for another day.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: Love in the Time of Corona Virus/Anxiously Awaiting the Mashiach

Two scenarios: Scenario I: A young boy awakened in the middle of the night, placed in the back of vehicle, told not to make any noise, and the vehicle speeds off down the highway. Scenario II: Young boy playing in park goes to see firetruck, turns around to see scary man in angry pursuit, poised to attack. I experienced and lived through both of those scenarios. Terrifying, no? Actually, no; and my picture was never on a milk carton. Here's the context: Scenario I: We addressed both set of our grandparents as "grandma" and "grandpa". How did we distinguish? One set lived less than a half hour's drive; those were there "close grandma and grandpa". The other set lived five hour drive away; they were the "way far away grandma and grandpa". To make the trip the most pleasant for all of us, Dad would wake up my brother and I at 4:00AM, we'd groggily -- but with excitement! -- wander out and down to the garage where we'd crawl
Post a Comment
Read more

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Shabbo
Post a Comment
Read more