Shmini Atzeret 5785

Overlapping histories of just being there

I speak today with trepidation, unable to ignore the echoes of what happened on this festival last year. In the morning, Moshe and then Aline whispered to me some reports of an attack in Israel, and asked if we should continue the festivities in the evening. I didn’t really get what had happened (and I don’t think it was only the French), and said yes of course. I gave the most irrelevant drasha in the history of the world, speaking about the correct date to pray for rain in northern Europe, while Israel burned. I didn’t have my phone, but my kippa seemed to have been an invitation that day for people on the street to share news with me. Someone told me that forty people had been killed, and I was shocked. Someone told me that there were gunbattles on the streets in Ashkelon, and I was shocked (it didn’t happen). By the time evening came, I didn’t have clarity but I more of a sense of the gravity of the situation. By that time, it was the beginning of Simchat Torah for us in the diaspora, and the end of what should have been Simchat Torah in Israel. We did a sombre version of the festival celebrations, with the Torah circling the synagogue seven times as the community sang slowly and whispered rumours.

When I came home that evening, I re-read the biography of Rebbe Kalonymous Kalman Shapiro, looking for a passage I half remembered. Rabbi Shapiro, known as the Piaseczner Rebbe or the Esh Kodesh, the holy fire, was a rabbi and teacher in Warsaw. In the biography, I read about the events of Yom Kippur in 1939, as dozens of disciples gathered in the house of their rabbi to shelter from the German bombing. The following morning, a missile exploded outside the house and the rabbi’s son Elimelech was gravely injured. They ran through the streets to look for care, but the hospitals were full and had run out of medical supplies. Finally they found him care at a Red Cross hospital. The family stood outside, waiting and praying, and in the morning as the Piaseczner Rebbe left briefly to look for another doctor to save his son, a bomb fell outside the hospital, killing many members of the family. His son finally died in pain a few days later, on the second day of Sukkot. The festival prayers were recited in the rabbi’s home with the traditional melodies, and when the chazan broke down in tears, the rabbi forced him to continue. By the end of Sukkot — and this was the section I had been looking for — on the eve of Simchat Torah 1939, it was hard for him to dance with any of the joy that he demanded of others. Only a small group of hassidim attended, and the dancing was short and subdued. One student recalls that as they left, the Rebbe stayed in front of the Aron Hakodesh in the dark, quietly singing the song Eishes Hayil for over an hour, with tears flowing down his cheeks.

Somehow, the memories of that day and the memories of reading these memories have fused together in my mind, and will probably colour the way I treat Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah for the rest of my life. I have no doubt that these festivals will return to be joyous ones, and perhaps they still are this year, alongside the grief. What will probably happen is that this holiday will absorb the events and preserve them in its liturgy, as it has always done. This is perhaps especially true for Shmini Atzeret, whose whole essence is mysterious. Even in normal times, it’s hard to explain what exactly is being celebrated on this day. It doesn’t correspond to a historical event, and this ambiguity has allowed it to host multiple meanings: Yizkor prayers for the dead, which were added after the crusades, prayers and poems for rain; even Simchat Torah is a later addition to this mysterious festival.

One of the explanations for the four species used on Sukkot is that each one is the most water dependent of its micro-climate in the Land of Israel. Holding them each day of the festival, we are simultaneously showing our thanks to God for the water provided and exposing our dependence and our vulnerability. [Avidan Halivni’s beautiful essay on Geshem and Gashmius explores this idea further.] Without water this winter, or with too much water, we’ll die. That was true in the past and is true of course today. From this perspective, the main aim of our rituals on Sukkot is our presence; to be noticed by God in all our fragility. When the pilgrimage festivals are described in the Torah, it’s also this presence that is emphasised.

וְחַג שָׁבֻעֹת תַּעֲשֶׂה לְךָ בִּכּוּרֵי קְצִיר חִטִּים וְחַג הָאָסִיף תְּקוּפַת הַשָּׁנָה׃ שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה יֵרָאֶה כׇּל־זְכוּרְךָ אֶת־פְּנֵי הָאָדֹן  יְ-הֹוָה אֱ-לֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃

You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the first fruits of the wheat harvest; and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times a year all your men shall appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. (Exodus 34:23)

The word here is yera’eh, to be seen. The point of the pilgrimage is to be there, to be present, to know that we exist in the eyes of God, to feel seen. It’s the same with prayer, which is described in similar terms. Shaking our pathetic bundles of branches on Sukkot is a fervent demand for intimacy and empathy: Look at me! Give me rain!

Shmini Atzeret comes at the end of Sukkot, and maybe lacks any meaning apart from that. We’re not celebrating anything at all, just our continued presence in the presence of God. Reflecting on the possibility that the word atzeret means ‘stop’, or ‘stay here’, Rashi cites a midrash:

וּמִדְרָשׁוֹ בַאַגָּדָה לְפִי שֶׁכָּל יְמוֹת הָרֶגֶל הִקְרִיבוּ כְנֶגֶד שִׁבְעִים אֻמּוֹת, וּבָאִין לָלֶכֶת, אָמַר לָהֶם הַמָּקוֹם בְּבַקָּשָׁה מִכֶּם עֲשׂוּ לִי סְעוּדָה קְטַנָּה כְּדֵי שֶׁאֵהָנֶה מִכֶּם

Throughout the festival of Sukkot, the people sacrificed seventy bulls representing the seventy nations of the world. As they started to leave, the Omnipresent God said, ‘Please! Stay with me for another small meal, so that I might enjoy your presence.” (Rashi on Numbers 29)

Today on Shmini Atzeret, and tonight at Simchat Torah, we’re called on to do just this. Be here, as we are, simply for the sake of being here together. I think of another historical Simchat Torah, this time from Tel Aviv in 1942. Remember there’s the funny disconnect on this festival between the diaspora and the land of Israel: the custom of Simchat Torah started here on the second day of the festival, but there they only have one day so celebrate it at the same time as Shmini Atzeret. In Tel Aviv, a Polish rabbi named Yitzchak Yedidia Frenkel is distraught by the loss of communication with the communities in Poland and elsewhere in Europe. At the end of Simchat Torah in Israel, when the festival is finishing there and beginning here in Europe, he brought his community back to the synagogue and told them to repeat the dancing. He said:

“At this exact hour, in Warsaw, Krakow, and every other city in Poland, they should be beginning their Simchat Torah celebrations. But we do not know whether the synagogues are open, whether the Jews are allowed to go to them, whether they are performing the traditional processions holding the Torah scrolls. We are completely cut off from them, and despite our attempts to make contact, the communities do not answer. But all Jews are responsible for one another. Let us act in their stead and perform processions on their behalf, at least symbolically.” (Based on ‘Out of the Depths’ by R. Yisrael Meir Lau)

This was the beginning of a popular custom in Israel to do hakafot shniyot, the second round of dancing at the end of the festival. But the roots are in solidarity, fear, grief and an insistence on being there and demonstrating our presence despite everything. I feel that this year and last year, something of the opposite role is being taken by diaspora communities, who will dance again for those in Israel who cannot. Sometimes, like the Piaseczner Rebbe, we need to force our joy; the stability of the performance saves us from the darkness. Sometimes, just being there, for each other and for ourselves, is enough.

Chag Sameach!