I have spoken to many rabbis, some have wrongly said that shmini atzeret is succot. Or they have been unwilling to say outright, that shmini atzeret is not succot.
I prove it by the fact that , as one rabbi once told me, In israel nobody sits in the succa on SA. In the diaspora, some do some don`t (but none say a blessing over sitting).
Here is a conversation I had with a logical rabbi on askmoses.
notice that although he says succot is 7 days in the diaspora, he means in the same sense that pesach is 7 days in the diaspora! For practical purposes, people tend to think about it as pesach being 8, but succot being 7.
bobp : do we wave the lulav and etrog on shmini atzeret?
R : No.
bobp : ok.. also, how many days is succot in the diaspora?
R : 7
bobp : I heard that in israel nobody sits in the succa on shmini atzeret. Whereas in the diaspora, it is different, is this right?
bobp : like in the diaspora, we all sit, some say a bracha, some do not.
bobp : or maybe.. in hte diaspora, some sit and some do not sit. I am not sure
R : Right about israel. Partly right about Diaspora. Some do, some son't. But NOBODY anywhere makes the blessing for sitting in a sukkah on Shemini Azeret.
bobp : why, in the diaspora, is it that some do some don`t. But in Israel, nobody does?
R : Because sukkot is seven days.
bobp : how is that related to why in the diaspora, some sit and some don`t sit. Whereas in Israel, nobody sits?
R : In the diaspora , where there is a question whether the 8th day is really the 7th day, some sit in sukkahs just in case. Others say it is not right to take away from thehonor of a festival day by saying maybe it is only a chol hamoedday.
bobp : so, in the diaspora, succot is 7 and debatebly 8 ?
R : No sukkot is 7. But which are those 7, so there is some calendar ambiguity.
bobp : so when people say that pesach is 7 days in israel and 8 days in the diaspora, they are oversimplifying. It is really 7 days in israel and 7 days in the diaspora, but which 7 is a calendar ambiguity
R : That's right.
R : But it is easier to think of the 8th day as also pesach because there is no conflict wioth a separate occasion like with sukkot and shemini atzeret
added{
[coming to think of it, I don`t know why he said it is 7 days in the diaspora! It is 8 . In the diaspora, we keep each day for 2 days.. (or 2 sets of 7 days one a day ahead of the other! So 8 days in total!!)
This has no effect when chol hamoed goes onto chol hamoed. But it has an effect otherwise, like
- when yom tov goes onto chol hamoed ,we keep both by keeping it like yom tov, since yom to is stricter (hence pesach or succot we keep 2 days yom tov in the diaspora.
- when a festival`s yom tov or chol hamoed goes onto a day that is not of that festival , so then we keep that next day as yom tov or chol hamoed, respectively.
It is completely logical, but it is hard to put the logic in one sentence or two. Probably because the logic is based on the logic of calendars.}
Topic: Chag Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah Sameach and Shabbat Shalom! (Read 5805 times)