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this precisely. He says that in
the End of Days, “The Lord
shall be King over all the
earth; on that day the Lord
shall be One and His name
One” (Zechariah 14:9), mean-
ing that all the nations will
recognize the sovereignty of a
single transcendent God. Yet
at the same time, Zechariah
envisages the nations partic-
ipating only in Sukkot, the
most universal of the festivals,
and the one in which they
have the greatest interest since
they all need rain. He does
not envisage them becoming
Jews, accepting the “yoke of
the commands,” all 613 of
them. He does not speak of
their conversion.
The practical outcome of
this dual theology — the uni-
versality of God and the par-
ticularity of Torah — is that
we are commanded to be true
to our faith and a blessing
to others, regardless of their
faith. That is the Jewish way.
SHEMINI ATZERET
Shemini Atzeret reminds us of
the intimacy Jews have always
felt in the presence of God.
The cathedrals of Europe
convey a sense of the vastness
of God and the smallness of
humankind. The small shuls
of Tzfat, where the Arizal
and Rabbi Yosef Caro prayed,
convey a sense of the close-
ness of God and the greatness
of humankind. Jews, except
when they sought to imitate
other nations, did not build
cathedrals. Even the Temple
reached its greatest architec-
tural grandeur under Herod,
a man better known for his
political ruthlessness than his
spiritual sensibilities.
So, when all the univer-
sality of Judaism has been
expressed, there remains
something that cannot be uni-
versalized: that sense of inti-
macy with, and closeness to,
God that we feel on Shemini
Atzeret, when all the other
guests have left. Shemini
Atzeret is chamber music, not
a symphony. It is quiet time
with God. We are reluctant
to leave, and we dare to think
that He is reluctant to see us
go. Justice is universal; love
is particular. There are some
things we share because we
are human. But there are
other things, constitutive of
our identity, that are uniquely
ours — most importantly our
relationships to those who
form our family. On Sukkot
we are among strangers and
friends. On Shemini Atzeret
we are with family.
SIMCHAT TORAH
The emergence of Simchat
Torah signals something
remarkable. You may have
noticed that Sukkot and
Shemini Atzeret are both
described as zeman sim-
chateinu, the season of our
joy. The nature of that joy was
clear and signaled in different
ways both by the sukkah and
by the Four Species. The suk-
kah reminded the people how
blessed they were to be living
in Israel when they recalled
how their ancestors had to
live for 40 years without a
land or a permanent home.
The lulav, etrog, hadassim and
aravot were a vivid demon-
stration of the fruitfulness
of the land under the Divine
blessing of rain.
The joy of Sukkot was the
joy of living in the Promised
Land. But by the time Simchat
Torah had spread through-
out the Jewish world, Jews
had lost virtually everything:
their land, their home, their
freedom and independence,
the Temple, the priesthood,
the sacrificial order — all that
had once been their source
of joy.
A single devastating sen-
tence in one of the piyutim of
Ne’ilah (at the close of Yom
Kippur), summed up their sit-
uation: Ein shiur rak haTorah
hazot, “Nothing remains but
this Torah.” All that remained
was a book.
Sa’adia Gaon, writing in the
10th century, asked a simple
question. In virtue of what
was the Jewish people still
a nation? It had none of the
normal preconditions of a
nation. Jews were scattered
throughout the world. They
did not live in the same ter-
ritory. They were not part of
a single economic or political
order. They did not share
the same culture. They did
not speak the same language.
Rashi spoke French, Rambam
Arabic. Yet they were, and
were seen to be, one nation,
bound by a bond of collective
destiny and responsibility.
Hence Sa’adia concluded:
Our people is a people only
in virtue of our Torah (Beliefs
and Opinions, 3). In the lovely
rabbinic phrase about the Ark
which contained the tablets,
“It carried those who carried
it” (Sotah 35a). More than the
Jewish people preserved the
Torah, the Torah preserved
the Jewish people.
It was, as we say in our
prayers, “our life and the
length of our days.” It was
the legacy of their past and
the promise of their future. It
was their marriage contract
with God, the record of the
covenant that bound them
unbreakably together. They
had lost their world, but they
still had God’s word, and it
was enough.
More than enough. On
Simchat Torah, without being
commanded by any verse in
the Torah or any decree of
the rabbis, Jews throughout
the world sang and danced
and recited poems in honor
of the Torah, exactly as if they
were dancing in the courtyard
of the Temple at the Simchat
Beit HaSho’evah, or as if they
were King David bringing the
Ark to Jerusalem. They were
determined to show God, and
the world, that they could still
be ach same’ach, as the Torah
said about Sukkot: wholly,
totally, given over to joy. It
would be hard to find a par-
allel in the entire history of
the human spirit of a people
capable of such joy at a time
when they were being massa-
cred in the name of the God
of love and compassion.
A people that can walk
through the valley of the
shadow of death and still
rejoice is a people that can-
not be defeated by any force
or any fear. Rambam writes
(Laws of Shofar 8:15) that to
experience joy in the fulfill-
ment of a mitzvah out of the
love of God is to touch the
spiritual heights.
Whoever stands on their
dignity and regards such
things as beneath them is,
he says, a sinner and a fool,
and whoever abandons their
dignity for the sake of joy is
thereby elevated “because
there is no greatness or honor
higher than celebrating before
God.”
Simchat Torah was born
when Jews had lost every-
thing else, but they never
lost their capacity to rejoice.
Nechemiah was right when
he said to the people weep-
ing as they listened to the
Torah, realizing how far they
had drifted from it: “Do not
grieve, for the joy of the Lord
is your strength” (Nechemiah
8:10). A people whose capaci-
ty for joy cannot be destroyed
is itself indestructible.
Adapted from the introduction to
the Koren Succot Machzor with
commentary and translation by Rabbi
Sacks.