Numbers Rabbah 21:23
Israel’s Plea for Holy Days
“On the Eighth Day, there shall be Atzeret (Assembly of Conclusion) for you;
do not perform work of service.
You shall offer a burnt offering of one bull and one ram…”
(Numbers 29:35-36)
This is what was meant by the Prophet:
“You added to the nation, Eternal One;
You added to the nation by which You were honored;
You pushed away all the boundaries of the Land!”
(Isaiah 26:15)
This was a plea from the Congregation of Israel to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, “You added to the (foreign) nation, O Eternal One” (Isaiah 26:15a)! You saw fit to add peace and contentment to the generation of the Flood, but did they offer You even one bull or one ram? And as if that were not enough, not only did they not honor You, but they went on to conspire, “Come, let us build a city…to make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4)!
Similarly with the Sodomites and with Pharaoh, and with the invading Assyrians and the Babylonians, did any one of them offer you even one bull or one ram? As if it were not enough that they did not honor You with offerings, they also committed acts which angered You! So, then, to which nation should You add peace and contentment? To Israel, as the Prophet can be understood to have said, “You (should have) added (peace and contentment) to the nation (of) the Eternal One” (Isaiah 26:15a)! Indeed, “Who is like Your people Israel, a nation unique in the world” (I Chronicles 17:21)!
So it has been incumbent upon You to provide us with holy days to provide You thereupon with offerings—Rosh Chodesh, Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Hakippurim, and the Festival (cf. Numbers 28:11-29:34)—not one of which have we neglected. So it is further incumbent upon You to add for us another holy day upon which we shall honor You: “You (shall then have) added to the nation by which You were honored (as) You pushed away (the invaders to) all the boundaries of the Land” (Isaiah 26:15bc)!
To this, the Holy One, blessed be He, responded: By your life shall I not withhold holy days from you, but I shall add a holy day in which you may rejoice, as was said, “On the Eighth Day, there shall be Atzeret (Assembly of Conclusion) for you” (Numbers 29:35)!
Numbers Rabbah 21:24
Just You and Me
“On the Eighth Day, there shall be Atzeret (Assembly of Conclusion) for you;
do not perform work of service.
You shall offer a burnt offering of one bull and one ram…”
(Numbers 29:35-36)
This is what is meant by the Psalm:
“In place of my love,
they accuse me,
and I am prayer.”
(Psalms 109:4)
Consider that on the Festival, for seven days, Israel offers You seventy bulls (cf. Numbers 29:12-34) for the seventy nations of the world. But Israel is disappointed: Master of Worlds, here we are offering seventy bulls for seventy nations for seven days for their benefit, good reason for them to love us, yet they hate us, as was said, “In place of my love, they accuse me” (Psalms 109:4a)!
Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: Now you can say, “I am prayer” (ibid. 4b), no longer the foreign nations! So bring offerings just for yourselves. “On the Eighth Day, there shall be Atzeret (Assembly of Conclusion) for you; do not perform work of service” (Numbers 29:35). Scale back the number of offerings from the seventy you brought for the seventy nations; instead, “You shall offer a burnt offering of (just) one bull and one ram…” (ibid. 36).
This may be compared to a king who held a feast for seven days, to which he invited everybody and anybody in his realm. When the seven days of feasting were over, the king said to his closest friend: Now that we have fulfilled our obligation to all of the inhabitants of my kingdom, let us sit down together, just you and me, and relax with whatever little we can find, a little meat or some vegetable. In the same way, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, “On the Eighth Day, there shall be Atzeret (Assembly of Conclusion) for you; do not perform work of service” (ibid. 35), but relax with whatever you find, “one bull and one ram” (ibid. 36)!
Rashi on Leviticus 23:36: Atzeret may be compared to a king who invited his son to feast with him for a certain number of days. When the time came for them to part, the king said: My son, I beg you to remain with me for just one more day, as it is hard for me to see you go.
Sedra Summary 