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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.

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