Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah - 2019

Chevra, tonight and tomorrow are שְׁמִינִי עֲצֶרֶת and שמחת תורה. So there are several interesthing things here. First, these are technically seperate holidays and outside of Israel happen on different days. The idea of finishing reading the Torah every year and restarting only came about during the Babylonian Exile around the 6th Century BCE. One interesting fact is that the last word of the Torah is ישראל and the first word is בְּרֵאשִׁית. If you take the last letter of the Torah and the first letter of the Torah, you get the heart of the Jews (לב) which is the Torah itself. Neither of these holidays are part of Sukkot, so we leave the Succah today. Shemini Atzeret is described as if HaShem is having a party (Sukkot) and inviting all the nations of the world to Jerusalem (like the parade that happens every year in Jerusalem) and then asks Am Yisrael to stay for 1 day longer, either as a final cup of tea/coffee or desert. It seems to me like taking a customer to re:Invent and then throwing another concert at the very end. Chag Sameach.