Archive for month: October, 2026

Torah Portion:  Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah

Don’t Stop Holding Hands
by Rabbi Efrem Goldberg

Let’s keep unified and keep from going back to dissension and pettiness.

Although Shemini Atzeret concludes the holiday of Sukkot, it is, in fact, considered an independent holiday. During Sukkot, sacrifices are brought in the merit of the nations of the world, but on Shemini Atzeret, the sacrifices are exclusively on behalf of the Jewish people.

The midrash compares Shemini Atzeret to a King who hosts all of his children for a party for several days and when the last day comes, he pleads, please stay with me one more day because “your separation is difficult for Me.” This is the classic understanding.

However, there is another phenomenal interpretation. What bothers God is not our parting from Him; He will come with us. What bothers Him is the fact that we are separating – that for the last month and a half we have been united, spent quality time together, worked together, celebrated together, focused on our sense of community with a shared destiny, together. And now, the holidays will be behind us and we will go back to the usual divides, focusing on our differences instead of our commonalities, resuming the usual blame, finger pointing, name calling and hyper criticism.

We will go back to our own interests, instead of focusing on community, go back to judging others based on what is on or not on their heads instead of what is in their hearts, go back to worrying about is the community going too far to the right or swinging to the left.

The unity and joy exhibited during the High Holidays and Sukkot were so refreshing, God is our divisiveness; it’s difficult for Him. It is as if He is saying to us, “Please spend one more day unified and together, transcending these differences and pettiness.”

How do spend this one last day, this independent holiday of Shemini Atzeret? We grab hands and dance in a circle, a circle that has no beginning and no end, no hierarchy or tier system, no head of the table or dais, no lead position, just everyone dancing equally in a circle, united, together.  There is not one circle for shtreimels, one for black hats, one for kippot serugot and one for those bare-headed. There isn’t a circle for the old and one for the young or a circle for the republicans and a circle for the democrats.

One circle, one people, one community, one history and one destiny. That is the enduring image of this Jewish holiday, that is the message we take with us into the dead of winter and beyond.

Don’t stop dancing even when Simchat Torah ends.  Don’t go back to the usual separation. Don’t stop holding the hands of the person on your left and your right literally, and metaphorically.

Don’t let go of the hands of your family, friends and members of the community. Don’t let go of the hands of those who are here, and don’t let go of those who are gone. We have felt the presence of our ancestors, our parents and grandparents over these holidays. Our homes have been filled with the aroma and taste of their recipes, we have heard the tunes they sang. They have lived with us these last few weeks and we must not let them go.

Seeing separation and division is hard for God and it should be hard for you. Don’t let go of those who are gone and don’t stop holding the hands of those who are still here.

Shmini Atzeret:  Simcha Without The Sukkah?
by Rabbi Boruch Leff

We have a difficult problem to address. Sukkot is called “Zman Simchateinu,” the Season of our Joy, in the Festival Shemoneh Esrai prayers. This is based on the verses in Vayikra 23:40-43, that describe Sukkot as deriving its joy from the Mitzvah observances of the Four Species, and the Mitzvah of living in the Sukkah itself.

What is hard to comprehend is why Shemini Atzeret is also called Zman Simchateinu. Shemini Atzeret lacks all of the joyful observances which belong to Sukkot. If the Torah tells us to be happy on Sukkot as a result of its special Mitzvos, how are we to gladden ourselves on Shemini Atzeret, bereft of the same observances? How is it possible to achieve joy without the same vehicles of the Season of Joy utilized on Sukkot?

Before answering, let us first present another question.

Our Sages tell us that the motive behind the holiday of Shemini Atzeret is because God wanted to spend a special day with us.

“It is called Atzeret (detaining) since I have detained you near me. This is similar to a king who invited his children to a feast for a certain amount of days. When the time came for the children to depart, the king said, “My children! I beg of you, stay with me for one more day. It is so terribly difficult for me to see you go (kasheh alay peridaschem).”(Rashi, Vayikra 23:36)

After we have rejoiced with God for 7 days during Sukkot, and we have brought 70 sacrifices which correspond to the 70 nations, God desires for us to devote and sanctify one more day for a festival. He wants one day devoted to His special relationship with us devoid of any connection to the other nations of the world.

Shmini Atzeret seems to have no purpose of its own except to give the Father one more day to spend with His children. It’s too difficult for Him to see us leave without our spending one more day with Him.

But why does this difficult departure only occur with the Festival of Sukkot? Why don’t we see this same feeling of love for us expressed with other Festivals? Pesach also has seven days of closeness with God. Why doesn’t God say the same thing then?

The explanation is as follows. Because Sukkot is known as Zman Simchateinu, the Season of Joy, only Sukkot can evoke a special closeness with God which produces the feeling of, “It is so terribly difficult for me to see you go.” We come closer to God on Sukkot — more than on any of the other Festivals because we remind ourselves that it is He who gives us all of the blessings of life. As Vayikra 23:39 states, Sukkot is celebrated when we ‘gather in all of our crops of the land.’ We take stock of our economic and financial God-given blessings during Sukkot. It is God who gives us what we need to live.

We become secure on Sukkot knowing that even if we lack something, it is only because God, in His Infinite wisdom, doesn’t want us to have it. If God didn’t grant it to us, we obviously don’t need it in order to be happy and enjoy our lives.

This is what we mean when we recite the daily morning blessing, “(I thank God) Who gives me all I need.” Others who do have and enjoy the particular blessing that I desire, were given a different personal God-given task and therefore need that item in order to fulfill it. But if I don’t have it, I must have a different task in life and do not require any more than what I have already.

So, on Sukkot God says, “You’ve come so close and you’ve been able to accept my ways and methods of dealing with you. You’ve been able to say ‘gam zu l’tova’ — this (all that God sends us) is for the best, and mean it. You’ve lived lives of holiness, injecting meaning into all your mundane actions such as eating and sleeping, in the Sukkah. It is hard for me to see all this go. Please, one more day of this beautiful relationship that we are experiencing now.”

The Zman Simchateinu, Season of Joy, of Shmini Atzeret – without the Sukkah and Four Species – is one of a simple recognition that God wants to be with us and hold on to the closeness He has with us. We have utilized the Four Species and Sukkah to build this relationship and closeness throughout Sukkot, but on Shemini Atzeret we no longer need any vehicles to be close with God. God desires us for our simple company and existence. On Shemini Atzeret, God desires us for us.

The task after this glorious Festival is to somehow make this connection with God last. The only way we can accomplish this is to bring God into our every day, mundane existence. Eating in order to be healthy to serve God, working at making a living in order to have the means to serve God. Whatever we do should have God in mind.

In order to enable ourselves to accomplish this, we celebrate the custom of Simchat Torah (Rejoicing with the Torah) on Shemini Atzeret. This custom was established with the goal of holding on to the growth we experienced on Sukkot. On Simchat Torah, we recognize that the only way we can hold on to Sukkot and all of its impact is to celebrate the Torah and make it the central focus of all that we do.

We do not celebrate Simchat Torah by learning the Torah as we do on Shavuot because learning is not enough to accomplish this goal. Rather, we dance and sing with the Torah and in this way we proclaim to ourselves that life is glorious and wondrous because we have the Torah to guide us in every aspect of our lives. By reaffirming our commitment to the Torah, we will be able to retain the closeness with God that we have experienced on Sukkot.

God says “Kasheh alay peridatchem — It is so terribly difficult for me to see you go” and we as a Jewish people have responded with Simchat Torah. We also do not want to leave God and the special relationship we have established. We also desire one more day, one more Festival with God. Through the impact of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah we can hold on to the closeness with God achieved on Sukkot, in all of our actions and thoughts.

Family Parsha:  V’zot HaBracha
by Nesanel Yoel Safran

From this week’s Torah Portion

It’s not always easy to see things come to an end, especially if we are used to the way they are. But life sometimes brings changes that must be faced.

In this week’s Torah portion, the Jewish people have to face the reality of Moses, the only leader they ever knew, leaving the world and Joshua coming to take his place.

Besides this, they have to prepare for a new type of life as they leave their wanderings in the desert and prepare to settle in the Land of Israel.

But every ending also heralds a new beginning. It’s not coincidence that this Torah portion, the last in the yearly cycle, is read on Simchat Torah at the same time that we start to read Parshat Breishit, the very first portion.

This is yet another reminder that every ending also brings with it a new beginning to look forward to.

In our story, a boy has to face making a big change and discovers how each ending is also a new beginning.

If Daniel’s neighborhood was anything, it was quiet. It sat on the edge of town far from the downtown bustle, and about the only noises people were used to hearing there were the chirping of birds by day, crickets by night, and of course, the happy laughter of the neighborhood kids.

Daniel and his friends would play for hours after school, running around the quiet side streets and playgrounds that were as familiar to them as their own backyard.

But one morning, that quiet was rudely disturbed by the loud rumble of a diesel engine and the hiss of hydraulic brakes as a big truck slowly backed itself into Daniel’s driveway.

“It’s here!” squealed Daniel’s younger brothers and sisters as they excitedly ran to the big window in the living room to watch the moving truck park and its burly moving crew clamber out. “Come see!” they called out to their older brother.

But Daniel stayed put sitting cross-legged on his bed with his favorite comic book. “I might as well enjoy my last few minutes before we have to move,” he said, almost spitting out the last word.

Daniel wasn’t excited at all about the Friedman family’s moving day. In fact, he had been dreading it. He had felt that way ever since his dad had called all the kids into the living room two weeks earlier, announcing how they would all be moving across the state to Waterville County, where Mr. Friedman would be starting a new job.

And now the dreaded day had come.

Daniel was sitting lost in his thoughts until his reverie was disturbed by a knock at the door. He got up to open it and found his mother standing there, looking busy but cheerful. She was holding a lamp.

“C’mon downstairs Danny,” she said. “The movers are here and they’ll need to get into your room. I made you some of your favorite blueberry muffins to snack on while we’re waiting,” she added, expecting to bring a smile to her son’s face. But she was surprised to see instead tears welling up in the corner of Daniel’s eyes.

“Mom, I don’t want to move!” he burst out. “I like it here. I like my room and I like my friends. And I even like my school.”

Mrs. Friedman raised her eyebrows at this last comment, as Daniel had been complaining about school the whole year.

“Now we’re … we’re leaving everything!” he went on, tears streaming down his cheeks.

His mom took a deep breath, put down the lamp and sat down next to Daniel at the edge of his bed. “I understand how you must feel,” she said softly. “It seems to you like everything’s falling apart, doesn’t it?”

The boy nodded.

“But Danny, you can look at it another way. While it’s true that this is our last day in our old neighborhood, it’s also the first day in our new neighborhood! There you’ll meet new friends, live in a beautiful new house and have all sorts of new parks and playgrounds to explore that you might even like better than the ones here.”

Daniel looked up. “I know Mom. But it’s just that nothing’s going to be the same. I’m scared.”

Mrs. Friedman gave her son a reassuring smile. “Not everything is going to be different, you know. First of all, your dad and I are going to be with you, and so will your brothers and sisters. Also we’ll have almost all the same furniture and you can even set up your room just like it is now. And then there’s the most important thing of all..”

“What’s that?” Daniel piped in with a new curiosity.

“You’re going to be the same ‘you,'” said his mom, smiling. “Remember that no matter where you go and whatever happens, that’s one thing that will never change.”

Daniel smiled as his mom gave him a hug. He felt much better and thought that just maybe it would be fun to move, after all.

Discussion Questions

Ages 3-5

Q. How did Danny feel when he found out that he had to move to a new home?
A. He was upset and scared.

Q. Why?
A. He didn’t want to leave his familiar house and friends.

Q. How did he feel after he spoke to his mom?
A. Better, since he realized some things would be the same even in his new house, and that it could be fun to go to a new place.

Ages 6-9

Q. Why didn’t Daniel want to move?

Q. Imagine coming home one day really hungry and your mom gives you a choice of eating either something you have eaten many times before, or something new she’d made for the first time which she says is very delicious. Which of these do you think you would choose? Why?
A. There are certain times people prefer to play it safe and go with what they know, even if they don’t like it that much. In our story when Daniel claimed that he liked his school even though he had been complaining about it, he was really saying that he preferred the familiar to the unknown.

Q. Can you think of a time when you did something new, or made a change and it ended up being a good thing even if you were hesitant at first? Why do you think you were hesitant at first?

Ages 10 and Up

Q. Our sages teach us that “All beginnings are difficult.” What do you think that means? How can knowing this motivate us to grow?
A. We learn from this a fascinating insight. Besides whether a situation itself is difficult or not there is an additional factor that will make us feel that it is. Simply the fact that it is a new situation will by itself make it seem hard. Knowing this can be a big help in trying and sticking with something new if we feel that it will be good for us. We can gain the courage to “stick it out” and see something through if we realize that it’s likely to get easier as time goes on.

Q. Sometimes it seems that companies are constantly coming out with products called “new and improved” even when there didn’t seem to be any problem with the old product. Why do you think that is? Why do you think people are interested to buy it?
A. While in a sense people prefer what is familiar to them, there is also a feeling of excitement about something “new.” Companies try to capitalize on this feeling to increase sales. The feeling itself may be motivated by a vague dissatisfaction in people’s lives which they hope the new product will remedy. However, more likely than not this doesn’t work. Rather, when a person focuses himself on a more meaningful and spiritually fulfilling lifestyle, he or she will begin to feel more and more satisfied.

 

Quote of the Week

“The Torah is a tree of life to those who grasp her, and whoever holds on to her is happy.”
— Proverbs 3:18

Joke of the Week

Little Mikey was roughhousing with his dog Nudnick. His mother said to him, “Now, Mikey, I know you love Nudnik, but maybe you are loving him a little too much. How would you feel if someone huge picked you up and squeezed you so hard you couldn’t breathe?”

Mikey thought a moment and then said, “I guess I’d feel like whenever Bubbie is here!”