Kavanot: שמיני עצרת תשפ״ז

My uncle worked in Manhattan and one of his non-Jewish colleagues told him that he really appreciates SHEM-en-eye-AZ-eh-rith. It took a while for him to figure out that he was talking about Shemini Azereth, שמיני עצרת. Why does he appreciate it so much? Because it’s marked on the municipal calendar as a day when alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules [New York City wants you to move your car every day] are not in effect. It’s the end of a whole month of suspended alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules. What a great holiday, and it’s thanks to the Jews for being unable to move their cars!

We also like SHEM-en-eye-AZ-eh-rith, but hopefully for something deeper than convenient parking. It’s first mentioned in פרשת המואדים in אמור:

But there are no specific mitzvot for this holiday, except for a קרבן מוסף mentioned in פרשת פנחס:

And there’s one place where שמיני עצרת is specifically not mentioned, in the context of עליה לרגל. Or so it seems.

שמיני עצרת is a day of שמחה. Halachically, this means bringing שלמים and enjoying meat and wine, but אך שמח means you should be really happy.

What does שמחה mean? שמחה is different from צחוק.‎ צחוק, laughter, is the response to things that are incongruous, that don’t fit together. We find humor in puns, pratfalls and the unexpected blessing, and to these we laugh. Sometimes the distance between what we want and what reality presents us with is so great, we say “if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry”. שמחה, joy, is different. שמחה is the feeling that things are as they should be, that everything has worked out, the feeling of נחת רוח. It is a sense of שלמות. That’s why סוכות is the Jewish Thanksgiving: we appreciate all of our gifts from the past year. And that means everything, even the things we didn’t appreciate at the time.

Rav Kook looks at one aspect of that.

The יומים נוראים are like a spiritual boot camp.

יום כיפור builds us into a new human. But what does Rav Kook mean that the ימים של שמחת קדש lead to התשובה שלמה? The answer is that סוכות and שמיני עצרת are days of תשובה as well.

We know the difference between תשובה מיראה and תשובה מאהבה.

Rav Shagar in שובי נפשי says that the יראה and אהבה here are not awe and love of ה׳, but fear and acceptance of the sin (or, more accurately, of my imperfect sinning past). Rambam in הלכות תשובה describes the need to reject the past, to become an entirely new person.

This, says רב שגר, is תשובה מיראה. R‘ Zadok miLublin says, No, I can accept who I am, and the deeds I did, and see them as ה׳’s will, that allowed me to become the בעל תשובה I am today. This is תשובה מאהבה.

תשובה מאהבה treats sin like an addiction rather than a crime; in order to improve I need to realize that I am not in control, and I don’t decide to become better. I accept that I am who I am and ask ה׳ to make me better.

So this explains the gemara. תשובה מיראה in this sense means I look at my past deeds as something done by someone else wearing my body. They were done, and they were wrong, but I (the new I) didn’t intend to do them. Thus, שזדונות נעשות לו כשגגות. On the other hand, תשובה מאהבה in this sense means that everything that happened in the past was ה׳'s will, (משלי טז:ד)‎ כֹּל פָּעַל ה׳ לַמַּעֲנֵהוּ וְגַם רָשָׁע לְיוֹם רָעָה. Not that what I did was right, but that looking back, it was all part of what brought me to this point. My goal is not to reject my past but to grow from it, שזדונות נעשות לו כזכיות.

And that leads to שמחה.‎ תשובה שלמה is תשובה from a sense of שלימות. That is תשובה מאהבה. It is about looking at ourselves and our past as a complete whole, and rejoicing in who we are, after the ימים נוראים and the חג שמחתינו. That והיית אך שמח. Though getting to keep a good parking spot isn’t bad either.