Then Israel Shall Sing
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On Shemini Atzeret 2023, terrorists invaded the Gaza Envelope. This invasion was specifically timed to coincide with a day of holiness and celebration. As we come up on the religious Jewish anniversary of that attack this is a reflection on that attack and the observance of Shemini Atzeret 2024.
In many ways, I see Shemini Atzeret as the highest of high holidays. When we look at the progression of the Chagim throughout the year, we start with Pesach. Pesach is a holiday that teaches people in a way that children can learn. It is specifically geared towards children. Most importantly, the commandments – the Mitzvot – that are associated with Pesach are those of food. You have Matzah, you have Marror. You have these ideas, these concepts, that can be internalized by even the youngest of children.
As we progress through the Jewish calendar, we can see that the people celebrating the holidays are growing up. On the seventh day of Pesach, we celebrate the crossing of the sea. And we see, in the Chumash, the only picture in all of Torah. On the right side and the left side are the sea and in the middle is the Jewish people. This is in Az Yashir Moshe, the famous song of Az Yashir. If you look at the last line in many printings (but not all) you’ll see on the far right the word ‘Yam’. And on the far left you’ll see the same word. It means ‘sea.’ And in the middle are the words “Uvnei Yisrael Halchu B’yabasha B’toch” the Jewish people are travelling on dry land in the middle.
And then we move on to the Omer. We teach counting. Then there is Shavuot and we teach gratitude. And then months pass, and we come to Rosh Hashana and we can hear the voice of Hashem with the Shofar. And with Slichot we can appreciate, in a way, the face of Hashem. We can appreciate the future that Hashem is designing and creating for us. Next we come to Sukkot and we’ve moved from the extremely concrete ideas of food to extremely abstract ideas.
We have the Arbat Haminim (Four Species) which I have written about elsewhere which celebrate our relationship with Hashem by showing our mutual desire to be with one another and the mutual gifts that we offer one another. More prominently we have the Torah as the Pri Etz Hadar (the fruit of a beautiful tree) and the Arvei Nachal, the idea of the Jewish people being a stream that flows through the world, that crosses between two worlds – between the spiritual and the physical and can redefine the world around it.
Then, after all of that, we come to Shemini Atzeret. And Shemini Ateret has no symbols. Our relationship doesn’t require food. It doesn’t require public expressions of gratitude or counting or listening to the voice of Hashem. It doesn’t even require symbols like the Sukkah, which almost resembles a Chupah (a wedding canopy). None of that is needed, we can just be with Hashem.
We can celebrate our relationship without any special signs.
The word Atzeret actually means restrained. Sarah’s womb was Atzar – was restrained. In a way this holiday is restrained.
What we often forget is that Shemini Atzeret is not the only Atzeret holiday. I touched earlier on the idea of us crossing the sea on the 7th day of Pesach. That day is called Shevi’i Atzeret.
On Shevi’i Atzeret we were surrounded by Pharoah’s army on one side and the sea on the other and we had to march into the waters. Just beforehand we were called Chamushim, literally Fivers. Bugs were created on the fifth day and we had been compared to them at the beginning of the book of Exodus when we Shertzu (multiplied like bugs). So we had to cross from the world of the physical, of being slaves, of being base people who had no appreciation for the spiritual. And we had to march into the waters, the waters that represent spirituality. And they split and they allowed us to pass. It was a fundamental transformation of our people.
But for 3,000 years there has been no parallel between Shevi’i Atzeret on Pesach and Shemini Atzeret at the end of Sukkot.
Now, on Shemini Atzeret 2024, there is a parallel. This is no longer Shemini Atzeret 2022 on which there is confusion about what this holiday is for. No, two years have passed. And on Shemini Atzeret 2023 we experienced what we can only understand as a day of betrayal.
In the leadup to Shemini Atzeret we had avoided the war for years. Our enemies in Hamas and Hezbollah were building up more and more capabilities. And our far away enemy in Iran was building a nuclear option that remains terrifying. And we couldn’t act pre-emptively. No matter how clear their intentions, we could not act preemptively. The condemnation would have been universal. We would have lacked the arms and armaments and wherewithal to attack without first being attacked.
Without Shemini Atzeret 2023, our own people would have been unwilling to sacrifice – and destroy – as we have in the year that has passed. We were trapped, just as the Jewish people were at the Sea. Only instead of Pharoah’s armies massed against us, we faced those of the Ayatollahs.
On Sept 11, 2001, I was in an airplane. I was flying from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia. Aside from the pilots and the staff, we on the aircraft had no idea what had occurred in New York and Washington. When we landed in Melbourne, the pilot got on the PA and told us what had occurred – what was known at the time – in New York and Washington while we had been flying across the Pacific. We went through Customs and they asked us all sorts of questions. You know, “Did you see anything suspicious?” that kind of thing. Finally, we emerged from Customs and waiting for us were TV crews. And they asked a number of us, myself included, a single simple question: “What do you think about what happened in New York today?” My answer was: “Thank G-d it didn’t happen in five years because the terrorists would have nuked the city.”
Of course, my answer wasn’t televised.
Nonetheless, the reality remains. 9/11 was far less catastrophic than it could have been.
In many ways, that same kind of logic applies today. The Ayatollahs, by many reckonings, are mere weeks from nukes. I believe they already have them. They just don’t have the volume necessary to ensure that they can get past our defenses. But they could. In mere weeks, they could.
A single high-altitude explosion of a nuclear weapon would erase our technological edge and we could be erased within days. Soon Shemini Atzeret 2023, we could not afford to delay the war anymore.
Just as on Shevi’i Atzeret, Hashem rescued us by forcing us into action.
What we’re looking at today is more than that. Because we not only have to turn and fight the Ayatollahs and their armies; we have to push into unknown spiritual territory – into the modern equivalent of the waters of the sea.
The Ayatollah’s weapons still threaten us. We could still be erased. We need to cross over to a fundamentally new spiritual reality in order to ensure our divine protection.
However, our reality today is not the transformation from 5 to 7. From mere animals to that which is spiritual and able to engage with G-dliness. No, today we are moving from 7 to 8. And what is 8?
When we look at the Chumash, we can see. When we want to offer a young animal, to build up the relationship with Hashem, we aren’t allowed to offer an animal in the first seven days of its life. It has to live out that first holy cycle – six days of work and one of rest. Only on the eighth day can we offer it up and make it a direct part of the relationship between man and G-d.
When the original Kohanim are inaugurated, Aaron and his sons stand before the Mishkan (Tabernacle) for seven days. Only on the eighth day is their inauguration completed. Only then can they form a direct part of the relationship between man and G-d.
In every generation of our people, we practice Brit Milah – ritual circumcision. We do it on the eighth day. It is only on the eighth day that we are able to be a part of the direct connection between man and G-d.
When it comes to Tzarat, the disease that strikes those who are overcome by hubris that distances them from G-d, you go through a process of purification. You are purified on the third day, the day on which life is created. And on the seventh day, the day on which life is given purpose. Only on the eighth day is the process is completed. The blood of an offering, and oil, are put on your big toe, your thumb and your ear. Just like it is when a Kohen is inaugurated. This represents that your influences, represented by your ear, should be G-dly. That your actions, represented by thumb and hand, should be G-dly. And that your will, represented by your toe and foot, should be G-dly. It is no accident that angels are depicted as having no legs, they have no will of their own.
This is the crossing we face today.
We are capable of both goodness and holiness. I believe our nation practices both. While some people focus on acts of creation, particularly in the secular world, and some people focus on acts of holiness, particularly in the Haredi world, our modern reality is that as a society we act in the full cycle of the divine. It is a remarkable and a beautiful thing. But it is no longer enough.
No, now Hashem is pushing us into something new. Into a new reality.
In fact, Hashem has driven us into the greatest of storms.
Through us, the entire world is being forced to declare what is Good and Holy on the one hand, and what is Evil on the other. Our experiences and our actions are serving as the medium through which those who truly have a relationship with G-d or who are capable of having a relationship with G-d, are being separated from those who either deny G-d Himself or those who hijack the divine in the service of evil.
The world is being split and we are the line that is dividing it.
In Az Yashir Yisrael – not the first song which is Az Yashir Moshe that celebrating the crossing of the sea, but the second one in Bamidbar (Numbers) – we are described as a people drawn up by a lawmaker. By Moshe Rabbenu (Moshe our Rabbi). We are drawn up and we flow as the waters through the desert. We are Hashem’s Nachal. We are forming the valleys and the rivers and shaping the world – spiritually – with the message of G-d. We are bringing the presence of Hashem into this world.
Shevi’i Atzeret was Az Yashir Moshe. Shemini Atzeret is Az Yashir Yisrael.
On Sukkot we bring offerings on behalf of all the nations. On Shemini Azeret – this Shemini Atzeret and every Shemini Atzeret to come – we are making the relationship those offerings aspire to into reality.
We are becoming the people, the people of eight. The people who can form a bridge between the human and the divine.
But our success is not inevitable. If we fail to act in a G-dly way (for a deeper understanding of acting in a G-dly way in war, see this piece), if we destroy for the joy of destruction, if we try to act as if we are not living in an age of open miracles, then the Sea will not close on our pursuers. Instead the Sea – those who are on either side of us, those who are G-dly or those who would deny G-dly or hijack the divine for evil – all of them, all the peoples of the world, will collapse upon us. And we will have failed to cross.
On Shemini Atzeret, we must do more than we did on Shevi’i Atzeret. On Shevi’i Atzeret all we had to do was have faith that the sea would split and step forward into the waters. But on Shemini Atzeret, faith and that basic level of action are not enough.
For the most part, in the Mizrachi (eastern) tradition when somebody says Kaddish in a community everybody in the community sits down. In the European, Ashkenazi, tradition we all stand up. We are standing in solidarity with the person saying Kaddish, we are sharing their burden. But in the Mizrachi tradition, everybody else sits down. Only those saying Kaddish stand up. And in many cases they come to the center of the synagogue and they speak together. They are making a public spectacle of Kaddish.
Why?
With Kaddish we declare the greatness of Hashem, the greatness of G-d.
The Kaddish does not say a word about mourning. It does not say a word about those who are missed. It is declaring that despite the pain and suffering and the difficulty, we recognize the greatness of G-d.
Kaddish is hard. On an individual level, Kaddish a tremendously difficult thing to perform when you think about what it says. But Kaddish is not just individual, Kaddish is also national.
We celebrate Yetziat Mitzraim – the Exodus from Egypt. When you think about it, millions of Bnei Yisrael and millions of Egyptians were killed in the Exodus. We have a perspective formed by thousands of years of distance and we no longer see that except as little drops of wine on our plate. But for the people who lived through it, it was extremely present. The elders of Israel who said “you can not do this Moshe, you are causing too much suffering” are not foreign in the way that they see reality.
When we look at the story of Haran the brother of Avraham, Haran dies and then Terach (Avraham’s father) moved because he can not be in that place anymore. The potential of Avraham Aveinu was opened up and we see all this greatness that results from the fact that Avraham is driven to this land. But Haran died.
When G-d says “I brought you out of Ur Kasdim” Avraham says “How can I believe?”
Right? G-d is saying “I killed your brother so you would become something more.” Even Avraham can’t accept it.
But that’s our challenge.
We have to recognize, despite the losses, that G-d has a plan.
Take the modern State of Israel. As much as we fought for it, as much as we were moving towards it before Second World War, the reality is that the losses and horrors of the Shoah, unparalleled horrors in the history of humankind, were a catalyst – not the catalyst – but a catalyst, for the creation of the State of Israel. There is suffering, but there is also hope.
And we say Kaddish.
At the end of Shindler’s List, the remainder, the few people in the Camp, say Kaddish.
For everyday death, for people who die in an entirely normal way, at their appropriate age or – G-d forbid when they are young – we say Kaddish.
When you consider it, Kaddish represents a bridge between the human and the divine. Between the recognition that there are things that we cannot accept, things we cannot celebrate, things we should not celebrate. And despite that, we can accept that there is a divine perspective. And we can praise G-d for his actions.
When it comes to Shemini Atzeret, I think we can see that we were rescued. We were rescued from a complete destruction. Not only that but a new opportunity, a new reality, was opened up for us.
We can see it.
But we can not internalize it. We can not embrace it with joy.
We are not meant to have the view of the infinite. After all, don’t we learn that a single life is like the entire world?
With Kaddish we recognize that Hashem acts with his own calculus and that that calculus is ultimately grounded in goodness and in holiness. And with Shemini Atzeret we, the entire nation of Israel, is a mourner amongst the nations.
We don’t have to sing and dance on Shemini Atzeret. There are no rituals, none at all, hard coded into this day. Everything is minhag. Everything is a mere custom. We don’t need to celebrate.
What we must do, what I believe will open up the gates of salvation, is to take this opportunity bless Hashem. To act as the bridge between the divine and the human.
We have to declare that although we can never embrace the curses of that dark day, we can see that they rescued us from a near certain destruction and set up on a path to a greater reality. And by doing so we can serve as the bridge between man and G-d.
The central line of the Kaddish is this:
יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא
May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.
My ask is just this: in the days leading up to Shemini Atzeret, on your Twitter or Instagram, in conversations or emails, share that thought. Just post that thought:
יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא
May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.
Welcome G-d into our reality and through those words serve as a bridge between G-d and man. Take the next step on our people’s voyage.
And may our people ultimately be blessed with redemption and safety and peace.
Photo by Taylor Brandon on Unsplash
