Shemini Atzeret
It is celebrated on the 22nd day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, usually coinciding with late September or early October.
Part of its duality as a holy day is that it is simultaneously considered to be connected to Sukkot and a separate festival in its own right.
[3] Outside the Land of Israel, this is further complicated by the additional day added to all Biblical holidays except Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
[4] Shemini Atzeret is thus sometimes wrongly regarded as the eighth day of Sukkot outside the Land of Israel, leading to sometimes involved analysis as to which practices of each holiday are to apply.
In the Land of Israel, the celebrations of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are combined on a single day, and the names are used interchangeably.
The Talmud[12] describes Shemini Atzeret with the words "a holiday in its own right" (regel bifnei atzmo).
[14] Immediately following that discussion, however, the Talmud describes Shemini Atzeret as the "end holiday of the festival [of Sukkot]".
This is also why one of Sukkot's liturgical aliases, "Time of Our Happiness" (zman simḥatenu), continues to be used to describe Shemini Atzeret—and, by extension, Simchat Torah—in the liturgy.
Moreover, Shemini Atzeret is a modest holiday intended to honor [God's] special relationship with his beloved nation.
[17][18] A different but related interpretation is offered by Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, who translates atzeret as "retain": "During the holiday season, we have experienced a heightened religious fervor and a most devout spirit.
[20] That sets the stage for the ritual, mood, tenor, and heightened sense of festivity for the days that follow it—namely, of Shemini Atzeret when seven hakafot are again performed.
Outside the Land of Israel, the hakafot are performed by some congregations on the evening preceding Shemini Atzeret,[21] and then by all on both the night and during the day of Simchat Torah.
The Jewish Encyclopedia states that during the time of the Second Temple, the festival of Shavuot received the specific name of "'Atzarta" as cited by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews (iii.
[6] Commenting on this, the Rabbis in Tractate Pesahim say that: The closing feast of Sukkot (i.e., Shemini Atzeret) ought rightly to have been, like that of Passover (i.e., Shavuot) on the fiftieth day, but, in order not to force the people to make another journey to Jerusalem in the rainy season, God fixed it as early as the eighth day.
[6]Shemini Atzeret thus concludes the process of judgment, repentance, and atonement begun on Rosh Hashanah: the Jewish New Year.
Two observances of Shemini Atzeret are mentioned in the Prophets and Writings portions of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible).
Reform and Reconstructionist communities generally celebrate this and most Biblical holidays for one day, even outside Israel.
The practice of reading the Ve-zot ha-berakhah, the last of the weekly Torah portions on Shemini Atzeret is documented in the Talmud.
On October 14, 1973, more than 100,000 Jews took part in a post-Simchat Torah rally in New York city on behalf of refuseniks and Soviet Jewry.
[34] Dancing in the street with the Torah has become part of the holiday's ritual in various Jewish congregations in the United States as well.
In part, this shows solidarity with Jewish communities outside Israel, which are still celebrating Simchat Torah (on the second day of the festival).
In Israel—and for different reasons in Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism—none of the unique observances of Sukkot (sukkah, lulav and etrog) carry over to Shemini Atzeret.
In some Ashkenazi synagogues, the cantor is clad in a white kittel, a symbol of piety, owing to the vitality of a positive judgment for rain.
[44] Recital of the Yizkor prayer is said to bring the person "closer to the cold and brittle part of mourning", and is necessary to promote the healing of a broken heart.
[45] As a biblically-mentioned holiday, Shemini Atzeret is also observed by Karaites and Samaritans: For Karaites, followers of a branch of Judaism that accepts the Written Law, but not the Oral Law, Shemini Atzeret is observed as a single day of rest, not associated with the practices of Simchat Torah, which are a rabbinic innovation.
Because of that, the 22nd day of the 7th month does not necessarily fall on the same date as 22 Tishrei in the (conventional, Rabbinic) Jewish calendar.
[49] Samaritans, i.e. the northern Israelites who split from Jews during the reign of King Rehoboam, recognise only the first five (or six) books of the Bible as canonical, and thus celebrate only one day of Shemini Aṣereth.
[50]On October 07, 2023, 06:29, on the morning of Shemini Atzeret, Hamas launched an attack on Israeli army installations and civilian communities near the Gaza border.
