("Eighth Day of Solemn Assembly"). Festival observed immediately after Sukkot (Tabernacles), i.e., on 22 Tishri, as laid down in the Pentateuch: "On the eighth day you shall observe a holy occasion ... it is a solemn gathering (Atseret); you shall not work at your occupations" (Lev. 23:36; cf. Num. 29:35). The term Atseret (lit. "concluding festival") is also applied to the last day of Passover (Deut. 16:8) and, by the rabbis, to Shavu'Ot (RH 1:2; Shev. 1:1). A parallel function may thus have been served, in biblical times, by the Atseret of Passover (Shavu'ot) and the Atseret of Sukkot (Shemini Atseret). The rabbis treated the eighth day as a festival in its own right, and the liturgy indicates this independent status through appropriate references in the Amidah and the Kiddush. Shemini Atseret is distinguished from Sukkot also in that the Four Species are no longer utilized after Hoshana Rabbah and Kiddush on the eighth day is followed by the special She-He-ḥeyanu benediction, which can only be recited for a new festival and not merely for the conclusion of Sukkot.
By rabbinic decree, the annual cycle of Pentateuch readings is completed and begun anew on Shemini Atseret. For this reason, the festival is known also as Simḥat Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law. Outside of Israel, where two days of Shemini Atseret are observed, the customs of Simḥat Torah are observed on the second day only. Some Sephardi and Ḥasidic communities in the Diaspora, however, also arrange Hakkafot processions with the Torah scrolls on the first night of Shemini Atseret, as in Israel. Whenever there is no intermediate Sabbath during Sukkot, the Book of Ecclesiastes is read on Shemini Atseret.
There are two significant additions to the liturgy on Shemini Atseret. One is the Prayer for Rain, chanted during the repetition of the Additional Service Amidah (but in Israel mostly prior to Musaf). Because of this prayer's significance, the Ark is opened and the (Ashkenazi) reader usually wears the white Kitel associated with the High Holidays. The phrase with which the prayer concludes, Mashiv ha-ruaḥ u-Morid ha-geshem ("Who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall"), must be repeated at every Amidah service until the spring festival of Passover. The other special feature is the holding of Yizkor Memorial Services after the Reading of the Law in Ashkenazi synagogues.
