Let’s be honest, you work hard. Everything in your life is a deliberate labor. Sure, you work at so many different things that when you switch tasks, it feels like you are on vacation but it is not so. Take bills (please). You comb through them, methodically analyzing, and then paying them off. Then the house needs attention. The repairman has to be called, the lawn must be mowed. Life is filled with countless demands. Your husband has needs. The children must have their needs/wants attended. There are relatives and friends who all demand attention. These things , of course, come after returning from a full eight hour day at work (if you are lucky).
Imagine taking one day off to sit, joke, eat, and lounge. We call this one day each week Shabbat. But there is a single day a year when we take this attitude with God. It is called Shmini Atzeret.
We have attended Rosh Hashanna services, fasted on Yom Kippur, entered in to the Sukkah, snapped the lulav and etrog in the holy day services and then it is all over. No more holiday. No more holidays for a very long time – not until Pesah.
Shmini Atzeret has no overt mitzvot appended to it like sitting in the Sukkah or doing things in a large way. It is the one day when the Master of All asks us to sit down, relax, and reflect in love on one another. It is almost like when the planning and party have been executed, all the guests have gone home, and you remain alone basking in the after-joy of that celebration.
Rashi has a unique, wonderful way of understanding Shmini Atzeret. He writes, There was once a king who invited his children for a banquet of several days. When it came time for them to go, he said to them: "My children, please, stay with me one more day—your parting is difficult for me..."
Pay close attention to the fact that the king (God) does not say that "our parting is difficult." He says "your parting is difficult." God's love for us is unbounded, despite that fact that the Omniscient One knows that after the holy day we will move away from Him; our intense relationship with God now that the Days of Awe and Sukkot has ended. So, He asks us to remain just an extra day.
On the fifteenth of this [seventh] month shall be the festival of Sukkot to God for seven days. On the first day is a holy convocation. ...The eighth day is a sacred holiday to you....[Lev. 23:34-36]
All the days we celebrate Sukkot we do so for God. The holy Torah though tells us that the eighth day is different; it is a special gift for and to us.
Looking at the above verse, Targum Yonatan interprets "On the eighth day move from your Sukkot to your homes with joy." What is this ancient source talking about?
After absorbing all the light from Sukkot we move back into our homes, our lifestyle as before…with one subtle addition – we bring the light with us. Shmini Atzeret is about not letting go of the utter joy and supernal light we have taken into ourselves these past weeks. The holiness of the Days of Awe followed by the earthiness of Sukkot has given us heightened possibilities of understanding and elevated living. When the Targum speaks pf bringing joy into the home what it means is not allowing all the holiness we have absorbed to become diffused by the life, the stuff, we left before the holy days arrived.
And the house, our home, is the Temple in the absence of Jerusalem's Beit HaMikdash. The table is our altar, the water is our libation, and the prayers we utter are those of the Kohen Gadol. That is joy we bring from the Sukkah and infuse into our world. Instead of diluting the holiness in the universe of the mundane we elevate the mundane to the level of kodesh.
There are some sages who say that Shmini Atzeret, though it comes once a year, also comes once in a lifetime What they mean is that we labor for seven long decades in our life. We toil and agonize over what we do and what we do not do. However, in the eighth decade of our life (Shmini), comes the wisdom to rest, ruminate on our days, and enjoy our many blessings. Sometimes it takes that long to mature. Isn’t this what the secret of Kohelet, that wonderful book we read on Sukkot, tries desperately to tell us?
“Go, eat your bread in gladness, and drink your wine in joy; for your action was long ago approved by God. Let your clothes always be freshly washed, and your head never lack ointment. Enjoy happiness with a woman you love all the fleeting days of life that have been granted to you under the sun…” 9:7