Though the Torah commands us to celebrate on all the Festivals, this aspect is especially dominant for Sukkot.
In Parashat Emor (Leviticus 23), again in Parashat Pinchas (Numbers 28-29), and again in Parashat Re’eh (Deuteronomy 16) the Torah commands us to observe all the Festivals; and celebrating is the essence of all Festivals: the word חַג, “Festival”, is the root of חגג, “rejoice”.
In each of these three passages, it uses the verb תָּחֹגּוּ, “you [plural] shall rejoice” or תָּחֹג, “you [singular] shall rejoice” solely with reference to Sukkot (Exodus 23:39 & 41, Leviticus 23:41, Deuteronomy 16:15).
It is solely in reference to Sukkot that the Torah commands us:
וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְּחַגֶּךָ...שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תָּחֹג לַה' אֱלֹקֶיךָ...וְהָיִיתָ אַךְ שָׂמֵחַ
“you shall be happy on your Festival…for seven days you shall rejoice to Hashem your G-d…and you shall be assuredly be happy” (Deuteronomy 16:14-15).
The culmination of Sukkot is שְׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת, Sh’mini Atzeret – the concluding celebration on the eighth day. To be sure, Sh’mini Atzeret is a separate Festival from Sukkot (vide Rosh Hashanah 4b, Sukkah 47a, Chagigah 17a, Bereishit Rabbah 100:7, Rambam, Laws of Mourning 10:4 et al.), but it is nevertheless the concluding festivity.
A time there was when Sh’mini Atzeret was only Sh’mini Atzeret. But during the late Second Temple period, Sh’mini Atzeret took on the additional aspect of Simchat Torah. When the Sages standardised the annual Torah-readings, they decreed that the universally-celebrated Simchat Torah would be Sh’mini Atzeret.
So this Festival is both the climax of the festivities of Tishrei, and also the end of the annual cycle of Festivals, which begins with Pesach in the springtime.
A day for the greatest rejoicing of the year.
And yet…
…and yet, has there been any Festival in living memory in which we – all of us – felt less like celebrating?
Every Jew had to struggle with this dichotomy this Sukkot: On the one hand, cancelling our celebrations meant surrendering to the enemy. On the other hand, only a psychopath could celebrate as if there is no war and no hostages.
On the one hand, G-d commanded us to rejoice. Just as a Jew cannot refuse to make Kiddush and justify this by saying “I just don’t feel like it, I’m not in the mood to make Kiddush”; just as a Jew cannot refuse to say the Shema morning and evening and justify this by saying “I just don’t feel like it, I’m not in the mood to say the Shema” —
— so too a Jew cannot refuse to rejoice and justify this by saying “I just don’t feel like it, I’m not in the mood to rejoice”. G-d Himself commanded us to rejoice, and we are obligated to whether we “feel like it” or not.
On the other hand, how could any Jew rejoice properly while 101 of our people are still held in the hell of Hamas captivity, tens of thousands of Israelis are refugees in their own country, and the wounds of Simchat Torah a year ago are still fresh and open?
As a nation we are hurting more than any time since the Shoah.
And yet G-d commanded us to rejoice.
Simchat Torah was the first Yahrtzeit of over a thousand Jews butchered in the most bloodthirsty slaughter in Israel’s history, an orgy of the same genocidal hate which we saw in the Chmielnitzky massacres of 1648-49, in some of the worst excesses of the Crusades, in a few other pogroms.
And yet G-d commanded us to rejoice.
Yes G-d commanded us to rejoice on Sukkot…but we live in a reality that makes rejoicing impossible.
We are still too close to the horrors of a year ago to give any proper response. We are still hurting more than any outsider can comprehend. We are still numbed from the blow.
Nevertheless, in a desperate attempt to find some way of coping with this Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, I turned to the Shem mi-Shmuel, a collection of homilies and sermons composed by Rabbi Shmuel Bornsztain, the second Sochatchover Rebbe; specifically, his teachings on the Festivals, Sukkot, year תרע"ג (1912).
Extrapolating from Rashi to Numbers 28:15 and one of the piyyutim (liturgical poems) for the Morning Service of the second day of Sukkot, the Shem mi-Shmuel notes that the Tocheichah (the Castigation) in Deuteronomy 28:15-68) comprises 98 curses.
Over the seven days of Sukkot the offerings total 98 lambs in the Mussafim (Additional Sacrifices): 14 lambs every day for 7 days, for a total of 98. These 98 lambs, says the Shem mi-Shmuel, come to nullify the 98 curses in the Tocheichah.
And then he cites his father, Rebbe Avraham Bornsztain, the first Sochatchover Rebbe, that these curses are “because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and with good heart” (Deuteronomy 28:47). Sukkot is זְמַן שִׂמְחָתֵנוּ, “the Season of or Rejoicing”, whose worship is the pinnacle of rejoicing.
Of course our rejoicing on Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah this year was incomplete, damaged, muted, blemished. Of course our rejoicing bled even as we do.
And yet, in spite of all…
…Pirkei Avot concludes by citing the words of Ben Hei-Hei: “According to the effort is the reward” (Pirkei Avot 5:23).
But this translation is inadequate: Ben Hei-Hei’s aphorism is just three words in Aramaic: לְפוּם צַעֲרָא אַגְרָא. And the Aramaic word צַעֲרָא doesn’t merely connote “effort”: it literally means “pain”, “grief”. Hence “According to the pain/grief is the reward”.
If with all our pain and grief we still rejoiced this Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, if we truly rejoiced purely for the sake of the mitzvah of rejoicing on G-d’s Festival, if we overcame our pain and our tears – even if for only a few brief moments – and rejoiced in the Torah than G-d has bequeathed to us, a pure and holy rejoicing of and for the Torah —then the reward that G-d will bestow upon us will undoubtedly be greater than ever.
And we can pray that G-d’s reward for our rejoicing in spite of all will be the speedily release of the remaining hostages, a speedy victory for our soldiers fighting for our survival, and the speedy final redemption for all Israel.