[Avodah] Hakafot on Shmini Atzeret

[Jonathan Baker]

RSBA:
> From: "Prof. Levine"

>>Have a look at Chapter 30 of R. A. Ya'ari's sefer Toldos Chag Simchas 
>>Torah (page 267). There you will see that due to a mistake in 
>>transcription, people were under the impression that the ARI danced 
>>in front of the Sifrei Torah on Shmini Atzeres night. However, he 
>>actually danced on Motzoei SA after Maariv.

>>It seems to me that this error in transcription is the "basis" for 
>>what Chassidim do.

>WADR, Yaari is writing a naarishkeit.

Ainochenami.  Insulting Yaari without reading him doesn't change anything.
Even so, I think Prof. Levine has oversimplified Yaari's argument, and
missed the point.

>To have even a hava amina that the "basis" of a minhag practised by 
>tzadikim and kedoshim and thousands of their followers over centuries 
>is "due to a mistake in  transcription" is ludicrous and mischievous.

In fact, Yaari says that the whole thing is based on this mistaken
transcription.

He quotes from Shaar Hakavvanot (R' Chaim Vital; shaar 6) "...I saw
my teacher [the Ari] z"l who was very careful in this to circle after
the sifrei torah or before them or after them and to dance and to sing
before them as much as he could on the night of motzai Yom Tov after
Aravit."

The problem was that Shaar Hakavvanot was not printed until 1852, and
then in Salonika. Various excerpts appeared from manuscripts in collections
of customs of the Ari.  One such was the Negid uMitzvah of R' Jacob Tzemach,
(Amsterdam, 1712, p. 76) who wrote "...and to dance and sing before them,
and to make seven circuits with all his strength with great simcha at night,
and in the day we did not see him do so."

R' J. Zemach was not accurate in his transcription, and left out "motzai
Yom Tov", transposing it to Simchat Torah night (Shmini Atzeret, since
he was in EY).

The author of Hemdas Yomim (part 3, Days of Sukkot, ch. 8) did not have
a ms. of Shaar Hakavvanot, and relied on R' Jacob Tzemach.

RCV did not bring any reasons for the 7 hakafot; later authors attributed
meanings to it, e.g. the 7 midos according to the Shelah hakodesh, etc.

Actually, I don't think this is necessarily the origin of chassidim
in chutz laaretz davka doing hakafot on leil Shmini Atzeret.  It seems
instead to be the origin of most of Jewry's doing it on the night of
Simchat Torah, rather on motzaei Simchat Torah.  Meanwhile, in EY, the
original Ari minhag of motzaei ST took hold in Chevron and J'lem, at
least down to the 1700s.  In Italy, too, they had accurate versions of
Shaar Hakavvanot, and did their hakafot on motzaei ST.

In fact, the Chasidish minhag to make hakafot on leil Shmini Atzeret 
was a chiddush of the Hemdat Yamim (ibid., ch 7), to express unity with
the Jews of EY who were making their hakafot that night.  It was picked 
up by R' Alexander Ziskind of Horodno (Yesod veShoresh HaAvodah 11:16).
A misnaged (quoted in S. Dubno, History of Chasidism, 446) testifies
(lefi tumo) that in the Maggid's kloyz in 1772 he saw the Chasidim making
hakafot on Shmini Atzeret "like we do on ST".

The hakafot that we do during the day seem to be a much later invention.
They sprang up independently in several places, in Germany, in Baghdad,
in Poland (as testified to by the above Yesod veShoresh HaAvodah), etc.
in the late 18th century.

So even if you won't read Yaari, you can read this summary, with 
pointers to his sources.  There was a mistake in transmission, which
led to the universal Simchat Torah night hakafot, and there was a 
conscious choice made by the author of Hemdat Yamim, and ratified by
early Chasidim, to do extra hakafot on the night of Shmini Atzeret.

* * * 

Other well-known halachot based on "mistakes": the kashrut of bee-honey
(when the text meant date-honey) and turkey (based on a mistake about 
Asian Indians vs. American Indians).  When asked about turkey, isn't it
based on a mistaken identity, the late Bobover Rebbe replied, "It's a good
thing our ancestors weren't as frum as we are".  So now we have a mesorah
that turkey is kosher.  And now we have hundreds of years of a minhag to
do hakafot on leil Simchat Torah.  It matters far less what the origin 
was, than that it has been ratified by pretty much all of Klal Yisrael.

--
        name: jon baker              web: http://www.panix.com/~jjbaker
     address: jjbaker at panix.com     blog: http://thanbook.blogspot.com