The Ascendent Journey of The High Holidays - with Rachel Goldberg-Polin

Dan Senor (0:00)

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Rachel Goldberg-Polin (0:18)

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We start this whole period with Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur, with the dynamic of God as a parent. And when we get to Sukkot, the relationship shifts, and God is really more like a partner or spouse. And so what's happening on the eighth day is that God is sort of detaining us, stopping us, not wanting the date to end. I think of it as, you know, like back in the days when you would go on a date and you didn't want the date to end, you'd kind of drag your feet at the end and you're walking slower and slower to where the date is going to end. And then someone will say, you want to come up for coffee? And I think of Shemini Yatzeret as God saying, you want to come up for coffee.

Shemini Yatzeret is you're at the top. Stop. Enjoy the view.

Dan Senor (1:27)

It's 11 a.m. on Monday, August 31st here in New York City. It's 6 p.m. on Monday, August 31st in Israel.

Before today's episode, a quick housekeeping note. On Thursday, October 22nd, just five days ahead of the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Stryker Center in New York City, where I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Scheinlin, and Brett Stevens to discuss what's at stake in Israel's 2026 election, and what its results will mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Tickets have gone on sale, so if you want to join us, please follow the link in the episode description. Now on to today's episode. Last year around this time, Rachel Goldberg-Polin joined us right before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to help us understand the days of Ah, what Chuvah really means, what we are doing when we hear the Shofar, why Yom Kippur is not simply about saying, I'm sorry, and why the real test of these holidays is how we live during the rest of the year. But the Jewish holiday season does not end with Yom Kippur. Almost immediately we move into Sukkot, and then at the end of Sukkot into Shemini Yatzeret and Simchat Torah.

Tishrei is the most holiday dense month in the Hebrew calendar, and yet for some reason, many Jews in the diaspora experience a kind of holiday drop-off after Yom Kippur. Why do Sukkot and Shemini Yatzeret and Simchat Torah get such short shrift? What are we missing? Because the transition from Yom Kippur to Sukkot and Simchat Torah is fascinating. We go from judgment and repentance to building a fragile hut outside our homes, eating and sometimes sleeping in it, celebrating, carrying the four spices, and finally dancing with the Torah. For Israelis and Jews around the world, Simchat Torah now carries another layer of meaning. October 7th, 2023, was Simchat Torah in Israel. So a holiday whose very name means the joy of Torah is now inseparable from one of the darkest days in modern Jewish history.

So I want to talk with Rachel about the whole arc of this season, but especially those latter holidays. Why do we move from judgment and repentance to fragility, joy, and ultimately dancing? And what do Sukkot and Simchat Torah ask of us now? Perhaps the holidays we tend to overlook contain the culmination of what the days of awe are trying to teach us. My conversation with Rachel right after this short break.

I'd like to tell you about Hadass, a lone soldier who grew up outside Washington DC, but served in an IDF infantry unit. On October 7th, as a 22-year-old reservist, she was called up to the Gaza envelope. For days, she cleared houses of terrorists and witnessed the atrocities of Hamas's attack. Hadass was supposed to begin university in mid-October of that year. Instead, she found herself in a reserve duty until sleeplessness and anxiety made it impossible to continue. A friend connected her with Buddy Line, a program of American friends of Israel Navy SEALs. Buddy Line pairs Israeli Navy SEALs with IDF combat veterans struggling with PTSD. Over the course of a year, they rebuild trust, confidence, and connection through warrior-to-warrior care. For 750 veterans to date, it's working. Hadass just completed her first year of university, and Buddy Line, she says, quote, gave me a reason to get up in the morning, no matter how the night was. During this period of holidays, please consider supporting this work through the link in our show notes. A gift of any size can help someone find their way back.