In most respects, Sh'mini Atzeret is different from Sukkot. One of the major differences is with regard to the festival offerings. During the seven days of Sukkot, seventy bullocks altogether were sacrificed in the Temple. On Sh'mini Atzeret there was only one. The Midrash explains:
On Sukkot, Israel offers sacrifices on behalf of the nations of the world, which in those days were thought to be 70 in number. By the end of the festival, we see that the nations are uninterested in whether anyone is praying and 
God tells Israel to concentrate on itself and offer one bullock in its own name.
sacrificing for them, so God tells Israel to concentrate on itself and offer one bullock in its own name.
It is like a king who holds a series of banquets for his courtiers and citizens. After the series he says to his most intimate friend, "Come, let us have a banquet for just the two of us. We have been through so much together and done so much for others, but they still seem apathetic. It is time to celebrate between us, regardless of outsiders."
The Jewish people try hard to be a light unto the nations, but the nations prefer their semi-darkness; and there are nations and leaders that only want to wipe Jews and Israel off the map. God's tragedy is that the nations are happier in a comfort zone without too much of the Divine precepts of truth, justice and peace. Not that Israel and the Jewish people are perfect. But they are perfectible and they do their best to honour the God-given covenant. For the others, God is often not even part of the agenda.
The Old Violin
It was battered and scarred. The auctioneer thought he was wasting his time trying to sell the old violin. But he did his best. He held up the instrument and started his sales talk.
"What am I offered?" he asked. "Who'll start the bidding for me? A dollar? Two dollars? Will someone make it three?"
But there were no bids at all, not one dollar, not two, definitely not three. The auction room was impatient to get on to the next item. Most people thought it was a big joke.
But then someone came up from the back of the room. It was a little grey-haired man, walking rather hesitantly. He picked up the old violin and wiped the dust off the instrument and the bow. Tightening the loose strings, he began to play. A melody came out as pure and sweet as the songs the angels sing.
The music came to an end. In a quiet voice the auctioneer said once more, "Now what am I offered? What am I bid for the old violin? A thousand dollars? Two thousand? Will someone make it three?"
This time there were bids. There was energy in the room. The auctioneer responded. "Three thousand dollars, four thousand, five thousand - going, going, gone!"
The audience cheered. Somebody called out, "How come the price suddenly went up so much?"
The reply was almost only a whisper, "What changed it? It was the touch of the master's hand."
There is many a violin that is so battered and dusty that no one wants to be bothered with it. There is many an old person whose life also looks ended, wasted and worthless. But everything changes when the world sees what difference is made by the touch of the master's hand. This happens with old religions and old festivals, too. It is so easy - so natural, almost - to say they are done, finished, worth nothing any more.
On a day like Sh'mini Atzeret, the end of a long cycle of calender events, we want to say, "Aren't I glad it's all over!" But if the spark has been kindled, we see the touch of the Master's hand. And nothing is ever the same again.
Calling Up the Bridegrooms
Normally, we call someone to the Torah with the word, ya'amod - "arise" - followed by the person's Hebrew name. Simchat Torah is different. The Chatan Torah and Chatan B'reshit are called up with a highly elaborate formula beginning, Mer'shut, "With the permission of the Almighty and the righteous band of the blessed congregation...." which asks God and man to approve the choice of the chatanim.
Whilst not a rhyme of the simpler kind known today, Mer'shut is made up of a series of sentences each ending in the syllable rah (norah, zimrah, etc.). The version used for the Chatan B'reshit is by Menachem ben Machir (11th cent.). It was probably written later than the formula used for the Chatan Torah. As we see from the famous 11th century liturgical work from the school of Rashi, the Machzor Vitry, a similar formula was used in medieval Franco-German communities when an ordinary bridegroom was being called to the Torah.
The idea is clearly that anyone singled out for honour must have the approval of the congregation and not be imposed upon them. This is not only an expression of the democratic principle that lies behind Jewish community life, but it also teaches a basic lesson in good manners - that decisions should be based on consultation. We learn this from God Himself, who, according to midrashic tradition, asked the angels' opinion before He created the world.
It must be said that not all the angels voted in favour of man being created. Man, some of the angels argued, would be unworthy to inhabit such a beautiful world; he would lie and cheat and destroy, and it would be better not to create him (B'reshit Rabba ch. 8). God overruled the opposition - otherwise, we would not be here to tell the story - and it is up to us in every age to make sure that the angel critics are not proved right.
Man, some of the angels argued, would be unworthy to inhabit such a beautiful world.
Avoiding the Extremes
When Samuel Pepys visited a London synagogue on Simchat Torah he was shocked at the rowdiness. Another writer who visited a synagogue in my time said that it was so funereal that one wondered who had died. The ideal is to avoid both extremes, both rowdiness and irreverence.
Psalms 100:2 says, "Serve the Lord with joy." Psalms 2:11 says "Serve the Lord with reverence." There ought to be joy, but there ought to be reverence too. Unbridled exuberance should be avoided, but so should cold formality.
If there is no feeling in the service, then it seems, as Abraham Joshua Heschel said, that the synagogue has caught a cold. The Chassidim reintroduced song and dance that were characteristic of Simchat Beit HaSho'evah, the Festival of the Water-Drawing in the time of the Temple; but a congregation must have its agreed sense of how far the rejoicing should be allowed to go.
There is an analogy in the communal regulations introduced in some places to control ostentation and extravagance at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. There is a case for similar regulations in regard to unruliness on Simchat Torah (and, of course, on Purim too).