Bilvavi Part 5 - 284 Joy of Shemini Atzeres & Simchas Torah

בלבבי חלק ה.  עמ' רפד

Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah: Two Different Aspects of Joy

Shemini Atzeres is called by two names: Shemini Atzeres, and Simchas Torah. They represent two different kinds of joy. One kind of joy is the joy of “Atzeres”. “Atzeres” means to “remain”. This is hinting to the Midrash that says that Hashem desired to remain with the Jewish people even after Sukkos ends, saying to them, “Remain with me one more day.”

What exactly is this joy? It is the joy that one can have just in being attached to Hashem, to simply feel with Him in a sense of companionship.

Simchas Torah offers a different kind of joy. It is the joy one has in being attached to the Torah, and thus we make a celebration that we have completed the Torah.

Joy Within Nature and Joy Above Nature

A chosson and kallah^[1] have a certain joy; and it lasts for seven days. The joy of Shemini Atzeres is a joy found on the “eighth day”, hinting to the fact that it is a joy that has to do with “eight.” In other words, the regular kind of joy is represented by the number seven, while the higher joy is represented by the number eight. We always find how “seven” corresponds with nature, such as that there are seven days of the week. The joy of a chosson and kallah, which lasts for seven days, represents the natural joy; the joy is that two natures are fusing together. Such joy is a joy within the bounds of nature.

But there is a higher kind of joy, the joy of Shemini Atzeres. It is a joy that is above nature – “eight” is above “seven.” Let us explain what it is.

Above Nature

It is the custom that when we finish the Torah, we immediately begin with Beraishis. The reason behind this is because the Torah is unlimited and endless, and we want to show that it has no end. The last letter of the Torah is lamed, and the first letter of the Torah is beis, which forms the word lev (heart). The heart is king of the body; a king is above his people. A king is allowed to break fences, and no one can protest him.^[2] A king – or the heart of a person – is not bound to the regular rules.

This is the joy of Simchas Torah; it represents the heart of a person, which is above the regular limits, for it is king over the body. The joy of Simchas Torah is thus a joy that is above the natural kind of joy. It is the unlimited joy one can have in the Torah.

The same is true for the joy of Shemini Atzeres. Our Avodah during the seven days of Sukkos is to realize how all of the world and nature is futile, to erase our attachment to this world (see the chapter before)^[3]. After a person has hopefully nullified his attachment to this world – and there are seven traits inherent in nature^[4] – he is now able to connect totally to Hashem, a state of being that is essentially above nature; that is the joy of Shemini Atzeres.

Within The Struggles, and Above the Struggles

The word simcha (joy) comes from word someach, and if we rearrange the letters, we get the word chamesh. Chamesh can mean two different things:

1. The number “five.”
2. From the word “chamushim”, which means “armies”; we find this when the Jewish people left Egypt, that they left in “armies.”^[5] Rashi states that these armies were unarmed with any weapons. From here we see that the word “chamesh” normally refers to weapons of war.

Simcha and chamesh have the same root letters (shin, mem and ches); there is a rule in the sefarim hakedoshim that whenever there is a root word^[6], there are two opposite meanings to it. In our case, this will apply as follows.

Simcha is when a person ends his wars, representing a level that is above nature. He has left the level of “Seven times a righteous person falls and gets up”, and he is above the regular ups and downs. He is above “seven” – and he is now on the level of “eight”. He no longer has the normal, natural struggles he used to deal with.

Chamesh represents the lower kind of joy – when one is happy upon overcoming challenges. He wages war with the seven “nations” inside him – the seven primary bad middos. He still hasn’t completely overcome them yet – he’s still within the normal fights of nature, fighting with his natural abilities.

After Yom Tov Is Over

When Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah is over, what does a person remain with? The higher joy of “eight” reached on Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah is gone; what does a person have left from Yom Tov?

Simcha is when a person is happy with something that got added onto my essence. People don’t find happiness in the fact that they merely exist; people are naturally unhappy. (There is a kind of happiness that a person can have in just being happy with what he has, but no one is happy with their mere existence.) Simcha is only present when a person gets something. If a person would take something he gets and make it a part of his essence, he would no longer be happy with what he has gotten, because now it’s part of who he is – and he needs something more than what he is in order to be happy.

Yet, this is actually our avodah: we need to take what we have gained and make it a part of our essence. Our avodah on Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah is to find joy in Hashem and in His Torah – a joy that is above nature. After a person merits this joy, he has to take it and make it a part of who he is. One needs to feel a total connection with Hashem that transcends nature, and an attachment with Torah that transcends nature. When a person takes the happiness of being attached to Hashem and the Torah (and this happiness can be reached on the Yom Tov) and he makes into a part of himself, the simcha goes away with this, because now there is nothing “more” to be happy about, for it is now part of the person.

For this reason, there is no simcha after Yom Tov ends. There can’t be. It is not because the great spirituality of Yom Tov has gone, but rather – it is the opposite! If we have succeeded in our avodah on Yom Tov, that means we have transformed the spirituality of Yom Tov into a part of our essence. It has gone from being something great that surrounded us into something that has been absorbed into our being.^[7] With this attainment, our simcha has to go away, but the gain is far worth it.

What is the avodah now as we start the rest of the year? It is now upon us to aspire for an even higher level than what we gained until now – and from there we will derive our next upgrade to our simcha.