The Deeper Meaning Behind Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah

What is the deeper meaning of the celebrations around leaving the Sukkah and dancing with the Torah scrolls?

There is a fascinating process behind these traditions, and it goes much deeper than the customs themselves.

Shemini Atzeret is a biblical holiday mentioned in the Torah. During the seven days of Sukkot, 70 bulls were traditionally offered in the Temple, corresponding to the 70 nations of the world. On the eighth day, the offering was reduced to one bull. The sages describe this as the Creator saying, in essence: “Stop. Let us have one more day together.”

Simchat Torah, on the other hand, developed later. In Babylonia, around the 6th–8th centuries CE, the annual cycle of reading the Torah was completed, and the celebration was connected with Shemini Atzeret. The customs of dancing and making hakafot developed later, particularly in the time of the Ari in the 16th century.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah looks at all of this on another level. These are not simply historical events or external rituals. They describe forces and desires that exist within every person.

The 70 nations represent 70 egoistic desires. They correspond to the seven Sefirot—from Chesed to Malchut - with each containing ten parts: 7 × 10 = 70.

During the seven days of Sukkot, we symbolically clarify and correct these desires through the Ushpizin - the forces of correction.

And “Israel” in the spiritual sense does not refer to an ethnicity or nationality. It represents the inner inclination in a person toward Yashar-El - “straight to the Creator”: the desire to rise above the egoistic intention and develop a different relationship with others.

Then comes Shemini Atzeret. In Kabbalah, Atzeret relates to gathering or holding together. The various corrections are gathered into Malchut, the common desire - the place where all our individual desires can become one shared vessel.

On the eighth day, the process reaches a point where all these corrections can come together. Through the common “screen” - the anti-egoistic intention - we become capable of receiving the spiritual light into our shared vessel.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah describes as spiritual revelation. It's not a simple concept, and it requires study to understand properly. But for those not satisfied looking at the holidays simply as traditions that we repeat from generation to generation - learning about these deeper aspects provides a map of an inner process taking place within us.