Tomorrow we celebrate the Holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the culmination of Sukkot. Shemini means the eight day and Atzeret means retention,absorption, or assembly/ingathering.
The Alter Rebbe explains the day like “tea essence.” To make tea essence one must boil many tea leaves in hot water for a long time to extract the essence of the leaves. Then you have tea essence, which one mixes a little bit with hot water and one makes tea.
Tomorrow we extract the essence of the month and make tea essence that should last us till the next Rosh Hashana.
Rashi explains the day with a parable in which a king invites his children to stay with him for eight days, the day his children were leaving he asked them to stay one more day with him. On Sheminit Atzeret H”S asks us to stay one more day with Him. He knows once we go back to our routine we won’t be so close to Him. He will always be close to us, but we are not always close to Him.
#chagdameach
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