struggling over Yom Tov
Apr. 3rd, 2002 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioToday is the seventh day of Pesach. The Torah states quite clearly that this is a festival day (like the first). Yet here I am at work, just like last year and the year before and...
I don't know why I have so much trouble with this one. (And, correspondingly, the last day of Sukkot.) There is natural resistance -- it's another vacation day, and clumps of holidays disrupt work schedules already, and there's no real ritual associated with it (unlike the seder), and -- locally, at least -- there's basically no community encouragement for it outside the Orthodox subset. (Yes, everyone has holiday services, but the presumption that of course you're observing the holiday is absent.)
But the Torah tells us it is a festival and to "do no work", just like the others, and that ought to be sufficient. And every year I feel a little more guilty and become a little more aware that I am sinning.
Maybe next year I will finally overcome this. (Once I start, I will feel bound to do it every time -- no "just when it's convenient" observances here.)
I don't know why I have so much trouble with this one. (And, correspondingly, the last day of Sukkot.) There is natural resistance -- it's another vacation day, and clumps of holidays disrupt work schedules already, and there's no real ritual associated with it (unlike the seder), and -- locally, at least -- there's basically no community encouragement for it outside the Orthodox subset. (Yes, everyone has holiday services, but the presumption that of course you're observing the holiday is absent.)
But the Torah tells us it is a festival and to "do no work", just like the others, and that ought to be sufficient. And every year I feel a little more guilty and become a little more aware that I am sinning.
Maybe next year I will finally overcome this. (Once I start, I will feel bound to do it every time -- no "just when it's convenient" observances here.)
Shmini what?
Date: 2002-04-05 09:30 am (UTC)When I was at Brandeis, "Shmini what?" was the common response of people to the holiday.
I mean, it's another day of Sukkot, special name or not -- you don't do anything differently, and it doesn't really feel any different.
According to some people, Shmini Atzeret is a day where it's optional to eat in the sukkah. So it's slightly different than the rest of sukkot.
At one point I was working on a bit of purim torah around shmini atzeret, with people trying to understand it like the other holidays ("So, have to eat in the sukkah, right?" "No." "So we can't eat in the sukkah?" "No..." "But it's traditional to eat cheescake?" "No, that's shavuot."... and so on. It was funnier, really...)