from the Rebbe on this week's parsha, Parshas Pinchas. In Parshas Pinchas, the Torah talks about all the yomim tovim. And one of the yomim tovim it talks about is the Yom Tov of Shemini Atzeres. The pasuk says, ביום השמיני עצרת תהיה לכם, on the eighth day, which means the eighth day of Sukkos, should be to you עצרת. And the word עצרת means holding back, and the simple pshat is that it's a day you have to hold yourself back from doing work. But the Targum Yonasan says it a little differently. He says like this: ביומא תמינאה, the eighth day, כנישין תהוון בחדוה, the gathering, עצרת also means gathering, which is taking in, should be with happiness, מן מטליכון לבתיכון, from the sukkah, from your Sukkos to your house, כנישת חדוה ביומא טבא, should be an entrance from the sukkah to your house with happiness and with a Yom Tov. So it seems from the Targum Yonasan that the Yom Tov of Shemini Atzeres, what's the תוכן of the Yom Tov? The fact that that's the day we leave the sukkah and we go to the house. And the question is, how do we say that this is the מהות of Shemini Atzeres, the fact that you go out of the sukkah and you go into your house? The

reason you go out of the sukkah and you go into your house is because there's no more mitzvah of sukkah. It has nothing to do with Yom Tov. If, let's say, the eighth day would not be a Yom Tov at all, we still wouldn't be eating in the sukkah, we still would be going in from the sukkah to the house. So how does the Targum Yonasan describe the mitzvah of Shemini Atzeres, the Yom Tov of Shemini Atzeres is the Yom Tov that we go out from the sukkah to your house? And be'emet this קשיא is also a קשיא on Rashi in Gemara. In Maseches Sukkah, דף מ״ח עמוד א׳, the Gemara says that Shemini Atzeres is called רגל בפני עצמו, it's a Yom Tov for itself. And Rashi explains, in which way is it a Yom Tov for itself? So Rashi says, משום שאין יושבין בסוכה, because on Shemini Atzeres we don't sit in the Sukkah. And here we have the same question. The fact that we don't sit in the Sukkah has nothing to do with being a Yom Tov. Like I said before, if it wouldn't be a Yom Tov, we also wouldn't sit in the Sukkah. So what do you mean it's a Yom Tov for itself, and what is the Yom Tov? The fact that we don't sit in the Sukkah. What does Rashi mean? So the Rebbe explains it על פי חסידות like this: The Sukkah is

considered a דירת עראי, which means a temporary dwelling. And in Chassidus it says, what does that mean? There are great המשכות, great Godly revelations that come down during Sukkos. But it's only in a form of מקיף. מקיף means it doesn't penetrate. You don't internalize it. It's only a מקיף. That's the whole idea of a Sukkah. Sukkah surrounds you, but these המשכות are in the form of מקיף. And that's called עראי. עראי means temporary. It's not part of you, it's not set forever. When we go in from the Sukkah into the house, the real meaning of it is that you're taking all these המשכות, all these גילויים, all these Godly revelations that came down on Sukkos, and now you internalize it. Now it's not in a מקיף anymore. You're not in the Sukkah which represents מקיף. Now you internalize it, it penetrates into you, it becomes part of you. And that's the whole תכלית. The whole tachlit of Sukkos is that we should get all this great hamshachot, but it doesn't stop by that. The tachlit is that these great hamshachot, which are only there superficially because they're so great that it can't come into the person, you can't internalize it, Shemini Atzeres is the day you internalize it, and it becomes part of you, and that's noge'a for the whole year. And that's what the Targum Yonasan means. That the mahut of Sukkos, what the Shemini Atzeres, I mean, what is the inyan of Shemini Atzeres, is that you're entering from the sukkah to the house. Yes, that's what Shemini Atzeres is. Shemini Atzeres is that it brings down all these hamshachot which came בדרך מקיף, it now goes into a פנימיות. That's why the word of עצרת also means to contain, because it contains these hamshachot that you had before, contains inside you, becomes part of you. And yes, this is the mahut of the Yom Tov of Shemini Atzeres. And it's not only the end of Sukkos.

Shemini Atzeres is the last Yom Tov of the whole Tishrei. That means all the giluyim and hamshachot of Tishrei come into, become internalized in the person on Shemini Atzeres, and that's the mahut of Shemini Atzeres. And it expresses itself in the fact that you're going out from the sukkah, which is makif and a דירת עראי, which means only temporary dwelling, and now you're going into a permanent dwelling, that all these hamshachot become now permanent. And this is also, על פי חסידות, what Rashi meant when Rashi says in מסכת Sukkah, that when the Gemara says Shemini Atzeres is a רגל בפני עצמו, a separate Yom Tov, so Rashi says it means that you don't sit in the sukkah. And the question was, not sitting in the Sukkah has nothing to do with the Yom Tov. You don't sit in the Sukkah because Sukkos is over, and if it wouldn't be a Yom Tov, you also wouldn't sit in the Sukkah. That's not what Rashi means. על פי חסידות רש״י means the fact that you're going in from the Sukkah into the house, it means you're bringing all the things that the Sukkah represents באופן ארעי, in a superficial way, in a temporary way, you bring it into the house which is a דירת קבע, a permanent dwelling, that all these ענינים רוחניים that you had during Sukkos and you had during the month of תשרי in a form of מקיף, they are internalized into the person, and now they become an ענין קבע, something that's set into the person in a permanent way.