Shemini Atzeret 2026/5787 

By Jen Smith 

There is something strange about Shemini Atzeret. 

We have already done everything. We spent the month of Elul preparing our souls, and then we stood before God on Rosh Hashanah. We confessed and fasted on Yom Kippur, and then we built our sukkot, shook the lulav and etrog, welcomed guests, celebrated the harvest, and spent seven days dwelling beneath a fragile roof open to the heavens. And just when the holiday season should be over, God invites us to … stay. 

Atzeret tihyeh lachem – On the eighth day you shall hold a solemn gathering. (Num. 29:35) 

Atzeret comes from a Hebrew root meaning to stop, hold back, to remain. The rabbis offer a beautiful image for this peculiar little holiday. After a great feast, the king turns to those he loves and says (in essence): Though the celebration is now finished, stay with me one more day, enjoy the closeness for a moment longer.  

That is Shemini Atzeret. There is no sukkah we are commanded to build. No lulav to shake. No shofar to blow. It requires only our presence. 

And since October 7, 2023, those words have never sounded the same. It was 22 Tishrei 5784, Shemini Atzeret. In Israel, and in our Reform Jewish practice, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are celebrated together. That day was supposed to be joyfully spent with friends and loved ones, a day of Torah and dancing, of finishing Deuteronomy and beginning Genesis again. 

Instead, Israelis awoke to terror. 

A holiday whose very name means “stop,” became a moment when time seemed to stop.  There are dates in Jewish history that cease to be ordinary dates. They become containers of memory; just as Jewish everywhere still say Tisha B’Av, knowing that centuries of destruction form the foundation of those words. Just as an entire universe of memory opens when we say Yom HaShoah.  

And now we say simply: October 7. 

We do not need to explain which October 7. We know. Maybe that is one reason Shemini Atzeret feels so different now. Now, as the holiday approaches, it carries with it a warning: Do not rush past this. Stay. Remember.  

Sit with what has been lost.  

Jewish tradition does not ask us to heal by forgetting. In fact, it asks almost the opposite: Zachor, remember. 

Though memory is one of Judaism’s most sacred obligations, Jewish memory is not meant to trap us permanently in the past. We remember Egypt so that we will protect the stranger; we remember Amalek so that we will recognize cruelty; and we remember destruction so that we can rebuild. 

The mystics give Shemini Atzeret an extraordinary meaning. Seven is the number of the created world: seven days of Creation, seven days of Sukkot, seven lower sefirot through which, in Kabbalistic thought, Divine energy flows into the world. 

But then comes eight. 

Eight represents what lies beyond the ordinary cycle. If seven is creation as it is, eight hints at creation as it could become. Eight is potential yet realized.  

Shemini Atzeret is not just the last holiday of the season. Eight is the day beyond seven, the day after completion. 

This day asks:  What comes next? 

This is one of the questions that has haunted the Jewish people since October 7. 

What comes next after devastation? What comes next after grief? What comes next when the world you thought you understood suddenly feels less secure? 

Judaism’s answer has never been that everything magically becomes whole again. Our tradition knows better than that. 

The Kabbalists imagined Creation itself as a process beginning with catastrophe. In the Lurianic tradition, the primordial vessels meant to contain Divine light shattered, and sparks of holiness scattered throughout the broken world.  

Created with a divine spark like a lantern in the night, human beings were given a task: Tikkun, repair. 

Tikkun does not deny that the vessels shattered; it gathers the scattered sparks, like crystal shards from broken glass, and reunites them in divine harmony. 

This may be one of the deepest Jewish responses to October 7.  

We cannot undo what happened and return the world to October 6.  But we can decide what kind of people we will become on October 8, and every day that follows. So, we gather sparks.  

Every time we comfort someone who is grieving, and every time we refuse to let hatred strip another human being of dignity, we gather sparks. Every time we strengthen Jewish community, teach our children, support Israel while wrestling with difficult questions, pursue justice, protect life, feed someone who is hungry, or simply show up for a friend, we gather sparks. 

Maybe this is why it matters that Shemini Atzeret stands beside Simchat Torah. When we reach the end of Deuteronomy, Moses dies, and the heaviness of grief and loss is overwhelming. And then, almost immediately, we roll the Torah back and read: 

Bereishit bara Elohim – In the beginning, God created… 

We immediately begin again – not because nothing happened, but because something did. Nothing in the Torah is erased when we return to Genesis; Egypt, the wilderness, Miriam’s death, and Moses’ heartbreak remain part of our story. By beginning again, we effectively decide that we will not allow the final chapter to become the final word.  

Our hope as Jews is not built on the promise that everything will be okay, but rather our determination to choose life and Torah, especially when we do not know what comes next. Shemini Atzeret tells us to stay with our grief, and Simchat Torah reminds us not to stay there forever. Three years after October 7, perhaps we are still learning to hold both truths: Atzor – Stop. Zachor – Remember. Bereishit – Begin again. 

We remember those who were murdered. We remember the terror experienced by Israeli communities and the trauma carried by families and by a nation. We remember the hostages and their loved ones. We remember all the lives shattered in the war that followed. We carry grief that crosses borders, grief for innocent human beings whose worlds were broken by violence. 

But we also refuse to surrender the future to the forces that create destruction. 

The Jewish mystical tradition teaches that the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, dwells with us even in exile and brokenness. 

God does not wait for the world to become perfect before entering it; God meets us in the broken places. Maybe that is why Shemini Atzeret gives us no new ritual object to hold. After the shofar and the fasting, the sukkah and the lulav, our hands are finally empty, and there is nothing left to hold except one another. God asks us to stay: with those who mourn, with Israel, with the Jewish people, with humanity, and with the sacred work of repairing this beautiful, and broken world. And then, when we reach the Torah’s final word, we take a breath, roll the scroll back, and begin again. Afterall, the Jewish story is the story of a people who, generation after generation, have recovered sparks of Divine light within the darkness and summoned the courage to keep going.  

This Shemini Atzeret, may we stop long enough to remember, gather the scattered sparks, and make room in our hearts for both grief and joy. And when we reach the end of the scroll, may we once again have the audacity, and the hope, to say: Bereishit – In the beginning. 

Because after everything we have endured, there is nothing more Jewish than believing that another beginning is still possible. 

Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!