(33) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: (34) Say to the Israelite people: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month there shall be the Feast of Booths to the LORD, [to last] seven days. (35) The first day shall be a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations; (36) seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall observe a sacred occasion and bring an offering by fire to the LORD; it is an Atzeres: you shall not work at your occupations.
(35) On the eighth day you shall hold an Atzeres; you shall not work at your occupations.
Rabbi Elazar said: These seventy bulls that are sacrificed as additional offerings over the course of the seven days of Sukkot, to what do they correspond? They correspond to the seventy nations of the world, and are brought to atone for their sins and to hasten world peace. Why is a single bull sacrificed on the Eighth Day of Atzeres? It corresponds to the singular nation, Israel. The Gemara cites a parable about a king of flesh and blood who said to his servants: Prepare me a great feast that will last for several days. When the feast concluded, on the last day, he said to his beloved servant: Prepare me a small feast so that I can derive pleasure from you alone.
(ד) דִּכְתִּיב (במדבר כט) בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם, דְּהָא יוֹמָא דָּא, מִמַּלְכָּא הוּא בִּלְחוֹדוֹי, חֶדְוָותָא דִּילֵיהּ בְּהוּ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל. מְתַל לְמַלְכָּא דְּזַמִּין אוּשְׁפִּיזִין, אִשְׁתְּדָּלוּ בְּהוּ כָּל בְּנֵי הֵיכָלֵיהּ, לְבָתַר אָמַר מַלְכָּא, עַל כֵּן אֲנָא וְאַתּוּן אִשְׁתָּדַּלְנָא כֻּלְּהוּ בְּאוּשְׁפִּיזִין, וּקְרַבְתּוּן קָרְבְּנִין עַל שְׁאָר עַמִּין בְּכָל יוֹמָא, מִכָּאן וּלְהָלְאָה, אֲנָא וְאַתּוּן נֵחֱדֵי יוֹמָא חַד, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם. לָכֶם: לְקָרְבָא קָרְבְּנִין עָלַיְיכוּ. אֲבָל אוּשְׁפִּיזֵי מְהֵימְנוּתָא, בְּמַלְכָּא מִשְׁתַּכְחֵי תְּדִירָא. וּבְיוֹמָא דְּחֶדְוָותָא דְּמַלְכָּא, כֻּלְּהוּ מִתְכַּנְּפֵי עִמֵּיהּ, וּמִשְׁתַּכְחָן. וְעַל דָּא כְּתִיב, עֲצֶרֶת, תַּרְגּוּמוֹ: כְּנִישׁוּ.
The verse states (Numbers 29:35) "On the eighth day you will have an Atzeret", for on this day Hashem is one with His people; He rejoices with Israel. It is comparable to a king who invites guests. The members of his chambers are busy taking care of the guests. Then the king says to these members, after you have spent all this time taking care of the guests and bringing offerings on their behalf, now let's have one day where only you and I rejoice. This is what is meant: "On the eighth day you will have an Atzeret", to bring sacrifices for yourselves. But the trusted hosts are always found with the king. And on the day of the King's rejoicing, everyone is gathered with Him. And that is what is meant by "Atzeret", which means "gather."
So up to here we have an interesting dichotomy: whereas in Sukkot we celebrate the communal in the largest sense, not only our own community but the fact that we are connected to the entire humanity, symbolized by the 70 nations, in Atzeret we are alone. We are just us. And I want to say that this same tension is felt in the Jewish history.
We tell and retell stories of overcoming obstacles. Of finding our way to liberation against all odds and of defeating our enemies in order to survive - remember the joke of almost all Jewish holidays: they tried to kill us, we defeated them, let's eat. This makes us strong, rooted and proud. But in every thing we say, there are things we do not explicitly say. And here is the other side of this story, symbolized by Shemini Atzeret: we are alone. Implicitly we are told no one has our back. Non-Jews will not stand up when we are persecuted, and therefore can only truly trust other Jews. This side of the story breeds suspicion and isolation.
But this is not the entire story. And we need to have a more nuanced view - there are those who stood up for us.
Let’s teach each other about the Romanian mayor of the town of Chernowitz or Chernivtsi, called Traian Popovici who managed to persuade the then Axis-allied dictator Antonescu to raise the number of Jews exempted from deportation from 200 to 20,000. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernivtsi]
Let’s learn more about Albania, where the government refused to hand over any of its Jewish population to the Nazis, and where over 2,000 Jews sought refuge in cities and rural areas, protected through the war by local Albanians. [http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/newsletter/22/main_article.asp]
Let’s tell stories of Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the head of the Islamic Center of France during Nazi occupation, who provided forged identity papers to over a thousand Jews and hid Jewish families in the Paris Mosque. [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/movies/how-a-paris-mosque-sheltered-jews-in-the-holocaust.html]
Let's remember the entire town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon whose residents saved more than 1,000 Jews. [https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.587866]
Let’s look around at what’s happening today, and see the non-Jews who stood watch over the synagogue in Charlottesville this summer when white supremacists stood across the street threatening the congregation with assault rifles in hand. [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/charlottesville-an-eyewitness-account-plus-open-carry_us_5996056ae4b033e0fbdec271]
If we attach ourselves just to the side of Atzeret, we forget not only the fact that others stood up for us, but we also forget that we are supposed to stand up for others. If we only attach ourselves to the Sukkot side, we might lose ourselves in it: the phenomenon of transforming Judaism into just a social justice activity is well known. That's why Sukkot has Shemini Atzeret just after: one balances the other. Or in the words in PAvot:
(טז) הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, לֹא עָלֶיךָ הַמְּלָאכָה לִגְמֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חוֹרִין לִבָּטֵל מִמֶּנָּה. אִם לָמַדְתָּ תוֹרָה הַרְבֵּה, נוֹתְנִים לְךָ שָׂכָר הַרְבֵּה. וְנֶאֱמָן הוּא בַעַל מְלַאכְתְּךָ שֶׁיְּשַׁלֵּם לְךָ שְׂכַר פְּעֻלָּתֶךָ. וְדַע מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא:
(16) He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.