This is the end, the last gasp, the final days, the last Shabbat of the fall holiday season. We have prayed; we have sung; we have celebrated what seem to have been countless holiday meals, and we are tired. Why do we do so much atoning and praying and celebrating for so long? Why is the holiday season so endless? In America one day or a weekend would suffice. That's how it is for July Fourth and President's weekend. That's how it is in most of the countries of the world. Why are we so different?
Our holiday's purpose, only to a minimal degree, is to mark an historical event. The main purpose of Jewish holidays is to change ourselves and to sensitize ourselves to a better kind of life. The High Holiday season just past began on Rosh Hodesh Elul, one month before Rosh Hashanah. At that time we tried to find our way in a complicated world. Night and day we said special psalms to awaken us to our moral failures and to set our purpose straight. When Rosh Hashanah happened, we set our mind to that one purpose of finding our way. We listened to the sound of the Shofar. The plaintive blasts were a clarion call alerting us that the preparation of Elul was completed, and we were beginning our march to meet the enemy who we discovered to be ourselves. We looked back to find remnants of the road that would lead us out of the dense undergrowth of confusion we had created by the lives that we lived.
After the New Year, we spent the next days trying to correct our ways with people, friends, and family. We then knew that we would never find our way alone. We needed to reenter the world. We needed to make our peace with the world.
On Yom Kippur we fasted, deprived ourselves of the usual small blessings that every day brings. We were creating a clearing, making the road anew. We were. And when the holiday ended we knew that we were on our way. But human life does not run according to plan. We are not machines. We do not change because a day comes and goes, because we have tried to change by a specific rite or combination of rites. We began celebrations as a result of the changes that had happened in our lives. We lived in Succoth for the week, and we recognized that the holiday of Tabernacles was 'the time of our joy."
But was it? Some time after Yom Kippur during Succoth, some of us realized that we were not as sinless as we had thought. We looked ahead, but the road was still covered by undergrowth. The way was not open. Succoth ended. We were still in Oz. We did not know how to get home to Kansas. We could not find our way. We had completely lost our way again.
On HoShanah Raba, the last day of Succoth, we put down the Lulav and Etrog, picked up bunches of willows looked to God and admitted our failures, admitted that we had hardly changed, admitted that we were lost, and we smashed the willows on the floor as hard as we could. In that despairing act and with tears in our eyes, we could see our way. That vision would carry us another year. So Friday night, the day after HoShanah Raba, we had reason to celebrate a new holiday, Shmeni Atzereth. Again we listen to the Torah, but this time we saw the way. At last we had full reason to be joyful. Tomorrow we celebrate Simchat Torah when we finish the Torah and begin the Torah again. We are on our way.
When Simchat Torah ends, we take our first step in the secular world with the knowledge that we have worked to change ourselves; we have found our way at least for a little while.
So why is our holiday season so long? It is hard to change a person. It is hard to find our way in this complicated world. One day or even a weekend will just not do.