Simhat Torah: Completing the reading of the Torah

The Talmud (Megillah 31a) records, from the perspective of the people in Bavel, that on the second day of Shemini Atzeret, (today called Simhat Torah) the ninth day of Sukkot, a community reads Ve-zot ha-berakha, the last parasha in the Torah. Nowadays, in Israel, where we only celebrate one day of Shemini Atzeret, we combine Simhat Torah with Shemini Atzeret, and Simhat Torah has become the more dominant aspect of the day. Accordingly, all Jews in the world, finish reading the yearly cycle of the Torah on Simhat Torah, just that there is a difference when is Simhat Torah: In Israel, on the 22nd of Tishrei and outside Israel, on the 23rd of Tishrei. Why does the cycle of Torah readings end on Simhat Torah? Why not read Ve-zot ha-berakha on Shavuot or before Rosh Hashanah?

The Mishnah does not mention when the cycle of Torah readings ends. Possibly this was because at that time (3rd century) in Israel, the reading of the Torah was only finished every three to three and half years and there was no uniformity in the different communities. However, the Talmud (Megillah 31b) quotes R. Shimon ben Elazar 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. It is interesting that while R. Shimon ben Elazar lived at the same time as R Yehuda haNasi, the editor or compiler of the Mishnah, R. Yehuda haNasi did not mention this tradition from Ezra in the Mishnah presumably either because he did not know of it or because he thought it was incorrect or not obligatory to read the curses on the Shabbatot before Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah. Also, R. Shimon ben Elazar was living in Israel, which means that this idea from Ezra meant that the communities in Israel were to stop their regular readings on these Shabbatot, read the curses instead, and then the following week continue with their regular readings, like we do today when there is a holiday.

This statement by R. Shimon ben Elazar was accepted in Bavel, where they read the Torah in one year, and is a major factor for why we do not read Ve-zot ha-berakha before Rosh Hashanah. While in theory on the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah, one could read the curses in the book of Devarim all the way through to the end of the Devarim, chapters 28-34, this would be a long reading for one Shabbat. Also, it could be that the reason for reading the curses before Rosh Hashanah was/ is to make people more pensive about the coming year, while if the Torah reading continued to the end of chapter 34, the effect of reading the curses would be lessened.

Accordingly, Ve-zot ha-berakha could only have been read after Rosh Hashanah. 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 this custom did exist, it did not become accepted. Maybe it did not become common practice because the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is a reflective period which is inconsistent with the completion of the reading of the Torah which is 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 of the common era, hakhel was the Torah reading of the day. Also, the Yerushalmi (Sotah 7:7, 33b) records that hakhel was celebrated on the night after Shemini Atzeret, which is the "ninth" day of Sukkot, Simhat Torah in the Diaspora. (Note the Bavli Sotah 41a, records that hakhel took place on the night after the first day of Sukkot.)

Yaari rejects this argument for various reasons. Yaari claims that if the Simhat Torah was related to hakhel then it should have been celebrated in Israel, where initially it was not celebrated. 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. Yaari also points out that the initial name of the holiday Simhat Torah was the day of blessing while one might have thought that if the holiday was due to hakhel, then the name would be related to hakhel. (Note, hakhel also involved many blessings, see Rambam, Laws of chagigah, 3:4.)

Machzor Vitry (France, 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 (Shelomo haMelekh) 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 outside of Israel, it would have been more appropriate to read Ve-zot ha-berakha on Shemini Atzeret, instead of on the second day of Shemini Atzeret. Thus, due to this second idea, outside of Israel, the Haftorah on Shemini Atzeret is Solomon’s blessing to the people, Va-yehi ke-chalot Shelemo, Kings I 8:54, Megillah 31a.

Yaari (p. 34) also quotes from the Hida (Israel, 18th century) that outside of Israel, Ve-zot ha-berakha is only read on the second day of Shemini Atzeret since on the first day of Shemini Atzeret, which is definitely a holiday, the idea is to read about the holidays, and the Torah reading on the first day of Shemini Atzeret is kol ha-bechor, Devarim 15:19-16:17. On the second day of Shemini Atzeret, where the holiday is only because of the doubt concerning the calendar, then one can read from the Torah something which does not mention Shemini Atzeret, namely Ve-zot ha-berakha. 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 also quotes an 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, the Torah reading for the first day of Shemini Atzeret, kol ha-bechor (Devarim 15,16), is read before Ve-zot ha-berakha which is from Devarim 33, 34. However, this idea of following the written order of the Torah is contradicted on the seventh day of Pesach (when we read Shemot 13:17-15:26) in comparison to the sixth day of Pesach (when we read Bemidbar 9:1-14), 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.

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.

I think that it could be 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 annual Torah cycle should end and begin, the law of hakhel could have been one of the deciding factors. Hakhel is the commandment to read 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, maybe this was 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. On the other hand, the ninth day of Sukkot was "empty" and then 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. (Note, this would not preclude people from calling the day the day of blessing since the Torah and initially the Haftorah referred to blessings.)  Today in Israel, Simhat Torah encroaches on the prayer for rain on Shemini Atzeret, but maybe once the holiday was established in Bavel, then the people in the land of Israel thought they had no choice but to combine both holidays.

A different possibility (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 the following day to read something from the middle of the Torah since that would indicate that one did not really finish the reading. (The reading of the maftir does not count.) Thus, if outside of Israel, the communities would read Ve-zot ha-berakha on Shemini Atzeret, and then kol ha-bechor on the second day of Shemini Atzeret, the reading of kol ha-bechor would indicate that they had not finished reading the Torah the previous day. Instead, once Ve-zot ha-berakha is followed by Bereshit, then one can say that the reading of Ve-zot ha-berakha was the completion of the annual reading of the Torah. 

Bibliography:

Abravanel (1437-1508), 1999, Commentary on Devarim, Jerusalem: Horev.

Yaari, Abraham, 1998, (first printed in 1964), The history of Simhat Torah, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook.