Chevre, today is הושענא רבה (Hoshanah Rabba) and, in Israel, tonight/tomorrow is שְׁמִּינִּי עֲצֶרֶת + שמחת תורה (Shemini Atzeret + Simchat Torah). Outside Israel, tonight/tomorrow is Shemini Atzeret and the next day is Simchat Torah. So there is a lot going on in these couple of days. Hashanah Rabba is a part of Sukkot, it’s the last day of Sukkot, but it’s also the last day of Teshuvah that we have been working on since we started adding some extra prayers way back at the start of Elul. If you’ve been pushing to get a long term project completed, like studying for a certification exam, this is the final push. It’s been a marathon all geared to help us return to doing the right thing.

Shemini Atzeret is a separate holiday from Sukkot. We are not allowed to eat in a Sukkah on this holiday. We return to our homes and have festive meals. This holiday is like going to a conference that is very public. On Sukkot the world is invited to Jerusalem, but on Shemini Atzeret, after the conference, the keynote speaker or organizer asks you to stay for 1 more day. So after re:Invent, everyone has already gone home, but Andy Jassy or now Adam Selipsky asks you to stay for some internal only meetings. This is Shemini Atzeret, the Jewish people are invited to a special holiday just for them.

Simchat Torah is relatively modern in terms of Jewish holidays. There is mention of it in the 1st century CE, but the recent practice came about around the 16th centery CE. The fact that we complete reading the Torah every year was enacted around this time as well. So we finish reading the Torah and start again. But to celebrate, we pull out all the Torah Scrolls and dance with them. It’s like pulling all the servers out of the DC after completing the migration to the cloud and dancing with them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this, most of what I’ve seen is dancing with a sledgehammer in the data center after moving off of machines (of course I can’t find the image of that now that I need it). So we celebrate the starting over of learning the Torah for another cycle. There is always something new to learn, a new project to start or a new migration or enhancement to be utilized. I bless you all that you should never be bored. Chag Sameach.