by Rabbi Daniel Huebner

This Friday evening Jews around the world will be celebrating the holiday of Shemini Atzeres. Saturday evening is the start of another holiday, Simchas Torah. Coming, without a break, immediately after the holiday of Sukkos, Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah serve as the grand finale of the High Holiday season. The primary focus of these final two holidays is the projection of the joy and meaning of this holiday-full month of Tishrei into the rest of the year, bringing the spiritual energy of the Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot into the rest of the, more mundane, year.

The Talmud explains the significance of the holiday of Shemini Atzeres through an analogy: Once a king made a great banquet for all his subjects. Everyone came, a large crowd eating the delicious food and celebrating. The feast went on with great joy for seven days. Then all of the guests, sated and happy, took their leave. But to his closest companion the king said: "Stay a little. Now that everyone is gone, we will sit together just you and I, for you are my dearest friend."

The Sages apply this image to explain the difference between the seven days of Sukkos and the concluding festival, called Shemini Atzerets, the Eighth Day of Assembly, which also includes Simchat Torah. During the seven days of Sukkos we celebrate G-d through global unity. This is represented by the sacrifices that were brought in the Temple on behalf of all the nations of the world. The final day was, and is, a special extra day celebrating intimacy with G-d. It expresses the idea, the reality, of taking an extra day to "pack up," to collect all the spiritual messages of the month of Tishrei and to focus them all on the upcoming year.

The holiday of Simchas Torah, Rejoicing in the Torah, on this Saturday night and Sunday, celebrates the completion of the yearly cycle of the reading of the Torah, and the immediate restarting of the cycle from the beginning, "In the beginning..." Come dance with the Torah, Sunday, October 8 at 10am.

Tishrei is a month of beginnings, a spiritual springboard, allowing us, in the words of the psalmist, to "go from strength to strength" into and throughout the year.

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Rabbi Daniel and Raizel Huebner moved to San Miguel from New Jersey in 2018 with their family to start Chabad SMA. They enjoy living in San Miguel and integrating with the community through classes, Jewish activities and social events.

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