The Talmud (Megillah 31a) records, from the perspective of the people in Bavel, that on the second day of Shemini Atzeret, the ninth day of Sukkot, one reads Ve-zot ha-berakha. This ends the yearly cycle of Torah readings, but why not read Ve-zot ha-berakha on Shavuot or before Rosh Hashanah?
The Talmud Megillah 31b quotes that Ezra established that the curses of Vayikra (chapter 26) are to read on the Shabbat before Shavuot and the curses of Devarim (chapter 28) are to be read on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, and hence Ve-zot ha-berakha could not be read before either of the two holidays. (Our practice today is to read the curses two Shabbatot before the respective holidays, see Tosafot, Megillah 31B, curses.)
Accordingly, Ve-zot ha-berakha could only have been read after Rosh Hashanah. Yet, still why not finish reading the Torah before Yom Kippur? Yaari (1998, p.18) notes that it is possible that there existed a custom to finish the Torah in the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but if so this custom did not become accepted possibly because the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is a pensive period which is inconsistent with the completion of the reading of the Torah a happy event.
Why was the completion of the reading of the Torah associated with Sukkot? One interesting idea is that Simhat Torah is related to law of hakhel (Devarim 31:10-13, Mishnah Sotah 7:8) the public reading of some of the Torah once every seven years. Yaari (pp. 353-358) quotes various people, starting with the Abarbanel (1999, p. 494, on Devarim 31:9-13), who have made this connection. One proof for this idea is that in Israel in the first millennium, hakhel was the Torah reading of the day. Also the version of the Mishnah Sotah 7:8 in the Yerushalmi (Sotah 7:7, 33b) is different than in the Bavli and records that hakhel was celebrated on the night after Shemini Atzeret, which is the "ninth" day of Sukkot, Simhat Torah in the Diaspora.
Yaari rejects this argument for various reasons. Yaari claims that if the holiday was related to hakhel then it should have been celebrated in Israel and not Bavel. This is not convincing since in Israel they could not establish a yearly holiday to celebrate the completion of the reading of the Torah since they did not finish reading the Torah each year, but this would not preclude the people in Bavel from making an association with hakhel. Yaari also doubts that a yearly holiday would be established based on hakhel when hakhel only occurs once every seven years. This too is not convincing since why not? Yaari also points out that the initial name of the holiday Simhat Torah was the day of blessing while one would have thought if the holiday was due to hakhel, then the name would be related to hakhel. However, hakhel also involved many blessings, see Rambam, Laws of chagigah, 3:4. Finally, according to the version of the Mishnah Sotah 7:8 in the Bavli (Sotah 41a), and Bavel is where the holiday of Simhat Torah developed, hakhel took place on the night after the first day of Sukkot, so why was the holiday to remember hakhel on the ninth day of Sukkot?
Machzor Vitry (11th century, quoted in Yaari, p. 32) suggests two reasons for why Ve-zot ha-berakha is read on Simhat Torah. One, to connect the happiness of finishing the reading of the Torah to the happiness of Shemini Atzeret, and two, to connect the blessings of Moshe with the blessings that King Solomon gave to the people by the building of the first Bet ha-Mikdash which were understood to have been pronounced on the eighth day of Sukkot, Kings I, 8:55-66. Both suggestions are difficult since both imply that it that would have been more appropriate to read Ve-zot ha-berakha on Shemini Atzeret, instead of on the second day of Shemini Atzeret. Thus, the haftorah on Shemini Atzeret outside of Israel is Solomon’s blessing to the people, Va-yehi ke-chalot Shelemo, Kings I 8:54, Megillah 31A.
Yaari (p. 34) quotes from the Hida (Israel, 18th century) that Ve-zot ha-berakha is only read on the second day of Shemini Atzeret since we want to read about the festivals on the first day of Shemini Atzeret, which is definitely a holiday. On the second day, where the holiday is only because of our doubt concerning the calendar, we are able to read from the Torah something which does not mention Shemini Atzeret, namely Ve-zot ha-berakha. However, Yaari notes this is a difficult explanation since the Torah reading of Shemini Atzeret, kol ha-bechor, is read on the last days of Pesach and Shavuot which are also “doubtful days.” Furthermore, kol ha-bechor does not explicitly refer to the holiday of Shemini Atzeret.
Yaari quotes a second explanation from R. Shlomo Ben Ezra (Turkey, 17th century), that by the reading of the Torah on the holidays we try as best as possible to follow the written order of the Torah on the festivals. Thus as the reading of kol ha-bechor is from Devarim 15:19-16:17, this is read before Ve-zot ha-berakha which is from Devarim 33, 34. Yet, this idea of following the written order of the Torah is contradicted on the seventh day of Pesach in comparison to the sixth day of Pesach, and if the goal was to match the blessing of Moshe with the blessing of Solomon, then that should have been a sufficient reason to also break the rule.
A variation of R. Shlomo Ben Ezra’s reason is that the reading of the Torah had to be on the last day of the holiday because one cannot say that one finished reading the Torah, and then go back to read something from the middle of the Torah the next day since that would indicate that one did not really finish the reading. (The reading of the maftir does not count.) Thus, if we would read Ve-zot ha-berakha on Shemini Atzeret, and kol ha-bechor on the second day of Shemini Atzeret, then the reading of kol ha-bechor would indicate that we had not finished reading the Torah the previous day. Instead, once Ve-zot ha-berakha is followed by Bereshit, then we can say that the reading of Ve-zot ha-berakha was the completion of the annual reading of the Torah.
Yaari (p. 36) concludes with two other reasons. One, from R. Yisrael Yaakov Algazi and the Ran (14th century, on the Rif, Megillah) that we read Ve-zot ha-berakha on the second day of Shemini Atzeret to end all the holidays with Moshe’s blessing. Two, from the Levush (16th century), that we read Ve-zot ha-berakha on the second day of Shemini Atzeret to fool Satan as to when is the New Year.
My guess is that the Abarbanel is correct that the choice of Simhat Torah to finish the reading of the Torah is related to hakhel. It is not that the holiday of Simhat Torah is to remember hakhel or to re-enact hakhel in some way, but when Chazal had to decide when the Torah reading should end and begin, the law of hakhel was probably one of the deciding factors. Hakhel is the reading of the Torah, so this would make Sukkot an appropriate time to finish reading the Torah. With regard to establishing the reading on the ninth day of Sukkot instead of the second day of Sukkot or on Shemini Atzeret, this was probably done in order to minimize the interference with the rituals from the other days, as on Sukkot, we focus on the lulav and the sukkah, while on Shemini Atzeret, we have the special prayers for rain. The ninth day of Sukkot was "empty" and hence, by making the finishing of the Torah on this day it was not encroaching on any other day and it was giving the day and the completion of the reading of the Torah special significance. Yet, this would not preclude the people from calling the day the day of blessing since the Torah and initially the Haftorah referred to blessings.
Bibliography:
Yaari, Abraham, 1998, (first printed in 1964), The history of Simhat Torah, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.
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