What’s in a name? Everything! - The Jewish Standard

There were many observances on and around October 7, the anniversary of the monstrous attack by Hamas that led to the death of at least 1,200 people, the wounding of hundreds of others, the brutal rapes of scores of women, the vicious ripping out of unborn babies from the bellies of pregnant women, the kidnapping of hostages to be tortured, the taking of dead bodies to be violated and left unburied.

Confounding the unfathomable horrors of that day, too many people in the world over the past 12 months turned blind eyes to what Hamas did. These people focus, instead, on demonizing Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza. They consider Hamas’ attacks to be “justified” because of the way they believe Israel treats all Palestinians generally. According to a survey released in late December by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Lou Harris poll, 60 percent of Gen Zers, young people aged 18 to 24, especially believe that.

Many thousands of demonstrators the world over protested in the streets, on university campuses, and in public buildings, chanting “From the River to the Sea,” a slogan that calls for the elimination of Israel from the world map and the pushing into the sea of every Jew living there. This is especially true of the Gen Zers, 51 percent of whom believe that Israel “should be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians,” according to the Harvard/Harris survey.

Long before October 7, Human Rights Watch had been accusing Israel of war crimes because of its frequent incursions into Gaza by land and air to root out Hamas, which has terrorized Israel since 2001 by launching at least 20,000 rockets into it. HRW ramped up its accusations almost immediately after Israel launched its war against Hamas. (HRW’s accusations have been repeatedly disputed by the U.S. Army’s go-to expert on urban warfare, Jonn Spencer, who, among other things, chairs Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at the United States Military Academy at West Point.)

For months, HRW had been requesting access to Gaza in order to dispute Israel’s claims of the carnage Hamas had caused. In a Jerusalem Post interview, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, founder and President of NGO Monitor, characterized HRW as being “devoted to demonizing Israel using the blood libels of genocide, apartheid, starvation, and war crimes.”

Even HRW, however, could not continue to dismiss Hamas’ culpability. On July 17, after months of investigation, it issued a report that received far less attention in the media than its condemnations of Israel ever did. The report made it clear that “Palestinian armed groups involved in the assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law—also known as the laws of war—that amount to war crimes. These include deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects; willful killing of persons in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes relating to sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling (robbing) of bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting.”

The Jewish world had not seen so catastrophic a day since the end of the Shoah, the Holocaust, and may we never see another like it. The problem, however, is that we are not seeing that day for what it truly was. There have been numerous instances of referring to October 7 as “10/7,” and equating it to 9/11. This was no 9/11 because Saturday, October 7, 2023, on the secular calendar was Tishrei 22, 5784, on our calendar. It was not just an ordinary Shabbat, however, which would have been significant in itself. More meaningful is that it was the tail-end of the Sukkot festival, the “Eighth Day of Assembly,” Shemini Atzeret. In Israel, which does not add on an extra “Diaspora day” to our festivals (except Rosh Hashanah), it was also Simchat Torah.

The importance of Sukkot and especially the Eighth Day of Assembly cannot be overstated. Unlike the other two pilgrimage festivals, Passover and Shavuot, Sukkot is uniquely designated as “z’man simchateinu,” “the time of our rejoicing,” because the Torah explicitly commands us to rejoice on Sukkot. “You shall rejoice in your festival, with your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow in your communities. “ (See Deuteronomy 16:14.) The next verse adds for emphasis, “you shall have nothing but joy.”

Although many regard Shemini Atzeret as the last day of Sukkot (technically two days here in the Diaspora), it is a festival in its own right—a regel bifnei atzmo, in the words of the Talmud. (See the Babylonian Talmud tractate Sukkah 48a.) The rituals of Sukkot—sitting in a sukkah and waving a lulav and etrog—do not apply to it. Maimonides, the Rambam, rules that it is even forbidden to carry a lulav on Shemini Atzeret for no valid reason. (See his Mishneh Torah, The Laws of Shofar, Sukkah and Lulav 7:27.)

The commandment to observe Shemini Atzeret is found in Leviticus 23:36. While there is no specific mention in the Torah of being joyous on that day, our Sages of Blessed Memory inferred the required joy based on Deuteronomy 16:15, which states, “you shall have nothing but joy.” (See BT Sukkah 48a.)

As to why there even is an Eighth Day of Assembly tacked on to the seven days of Sukkot, our Sages referred to a parable about a human king who requested that his loyal subjects prepare a great feast for him that would last for several days. When the feast was ended and his subjects prepared to leave for home, the king made one more request, which he made only to his most loyal subject, whom he loved the most: “Now make a small feast for me so that I may enjoy pleasure from you [before you leave].”

The parable’s point is this: In effect, God said, “You celebrated with great joy the seven days of Sukkot. As you prepare to leave Jerusalem for home, gather together in holy assembly and feast for just one more day, so that I may take pleasure in all of you.” (See BT Sukkah 55b.)

Simchat Torah is not a biblical observance. It is not a talmudic one either, but it does have talmudic roots, because BT Megillah 31a ordained that the final weekly Torah portion, V’zot Ha-berachah, was to be read on the Diaspora-imposed second day of Shemini Atzeret, regardless of whether that day fell on a Shabbat. Those roots, however, took many centuries to grow into what Simchat Torah is today. The name itself does not even appear before the 11th century. We mark that day by closing out the weekly Torah reading cycle and then immediately beginning the next cycle. We remove the Torah scrolls from the ark and circle the sanctuary seven times, accompanied by spirited dancing and singing, before the required reading begins, with its own special rituals and customs. Hearty partying after services end completes the celebration.

In the Diaspora, this occurs on the second day of Shemini Atzeret (too often erroneously referred to as the ninth day of Sukkot). Because, as noted above, Israel does not observe a second day, Simchat Torah is observed on Shemini Atzeret itself.

Hamas and the terrorist groups that joined it on October 7th chose that date because of what it represented. On Yom Kippur, the New York Times published details from minutes of Hamas’s secret planning meetings confirming that. The minutes also show that Hamas’ fighters had precise objectives that could only have been assigned to them because of information obtained by a well-organized intelligence network. For example, they knew essential details about the various kibbutzim to be attacked, including security arrangements and what buildings to attack.

As it is, Arabs and Jews have been living together and observing each other since the late 19th century, and they are keenly aware of each other’s practices and observances. The leaders of Hamas who planned the attack, therefore, were certainly conscious of the significance of October 7. They chose that date because it was arguably the most joyous day of the Jewish year—preceded by seven days of rejoicing. How tempting it was to plan an attack of such magnitude that it would turn that most joyous day into a permanent day of mourning.

October 7 and 9/11 were both national tragedies, but there is one huge difference. September 11th is not a significant date on the American calendar; that date was chosen at random. October 7 was chosen because, on the Jewish calendar in 2023, it was Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. For Hamas’ planners, there was no day better suited to their desire to bring Israel to its knees and turn an annual day of unbridled joy into an annual day of hopelessness and misery.

We do need to have annual memorial gatherings on the secular October 7 because we need to remind a world of disbelievers what happened that day, but only because marking such events based on our calendar would violate the spirit of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, and because it would deny Hamas the objective it hopes to achieve in choosing that day.

Over time, however, “10/7” will just become the Jewish 9/11, with no understanding of why that date was chosen and that we, the Jewish people as a whole, and Judaism itself were also its intended victims.

Starting now, we need to stop referring to that day by its secular date. We need to call it the name that truly defines it: “The Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah Massacre.”

We also need to follow Israel’s lead and set aside the 25th day of Tishrei each year to mark the official yahrzeit, albeit three days after Shemini Atzeret, an observance Israel’s cabinet enacted on October 13.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is
www.shammai.org.

Opinion

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