1.
I have a feeling that our sages of blessed memory really wanted Jews to be in the Land of Israel during the holidays. I mean, they wanted Jews to be in the Holy Land all year round, of course, but when it comes to the laws of Yom Tov Shani for a citizen of the Land of Israel who is abroad, the laws are so complicated to implement that sometimes you just want to take a plane in the middle of Yom Tov Shani and go home.
But this is what you are not allowed to do. That is, in principle you should have been allowed to do it, but in practice you are not allowed to do it. Stay home. Just don't forget to do Havdalah before you fly. It is a halakhic obligation.
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Confused? Us too.
A simple search in the large database of 'Otzar Hochma' shows that at least three thick books of halachah were written on the subject of this column, and these are their names (concentrate, because at first glance both names seem identical): 'Yom Tov Shani Kahalatu', 'Yom Tov Shani Be Halacha', 'Yom Tov Shani La Halacha'.
A long list of halachic issues are discussed there, here is a small selection of them: studying on the second day of Shavuot, sitting in the Sukkah on the Shemini Atzeret, the Seder night on the second day of Shavuot, prayers for a foreigner visiting abroad, saying to a foreigner on the second day of Shavuot, eating chametz on the Shemini of Pesach, a child who has grown up in a place where he is not permanently (sounds like a good topic for a spicy Bar Mitzvah sermon for someone born on a holiday), a foreigner who is permanently in Israel during the holidays, Havdalah on the first day of Shavuot, the obligation of a second day of Shavuot in Eilat and Gaza (spoiler for the curious: regarding Eilat, the poskim differed, but Gaza is ruled by all of us - with the exception of Arik Sharon - as the Land of Israel), adding a foreigner to a minyan in the Land of Israel, adding a foreigner to a minyan abroad, and aliyah to the Torah in the above cases.
All this, I thought, had absolutely nothing to do with me.
On the eve of our first holiday in the United States as emissaries of the Mizrahi movement, it was clear to me that I was an Israeli who planned to return to Israel, and that this whole story was completely irrelevant. What do we have to do with a second Good Friday of postcards?
So, a quick glance through these books, very quick even, reveals one conclusion: According to all the poskim, an Israeli who is abroad on a Monday is prohibited from doing work. Period. And no, it doesn't matter if he returns to the country soon. There is no permissive provision here.
Actually, there is one case where perhaps we can be more lenient: an Israeli who is on a second Yom Tov in a place where no Jews live at all. A deserted island. If you found such a spot in the world, there are rabbis who might allow you not to observe a second Yom Tov there. The question is what your first Yom Tov would look like without any Jews at all.
2.
Well, then keep a Monday too, what's the big deal about it?
Oh, so here we come to the point: it's really not that simple. True, you're not allowed to do any work on Yom Tov Shani, but at the same time there are a number of laws that don't allow you to truly feel like a holiday in any way.
More than that, the halacha actually puts you in a kind of emotional bind. It doesn't let you act like you would on a weekday, but it also doesn't allow you to celebrate completely. For example, you are obligated to put on tefillin. And there is nothing more anti-Holiday than putting on tefillin. On the other hand, it is very important to do it secretly, without the locals seeing you. Outwardly, you are supposed to radiate an atmosphere of Simchat Torah as usual.
Or another example: You need to do a Havdalah on the first day of Yom Tov - in private. And you also go to the synagogue to pray in the minyan, but pray the eighteenth prayer of a weekday. Again, it is important that it be in private, without the locals noticing, so be careful with the banging of 'Forgive us,' okay?
And if all this is not enough, then on the first day of Simchat Torah, when it is customary in the Diaspora to sit in the Sukkah, you are allowed to sit with your hosts in the Sukkah, but just before the holiday begins, I discovered the following halachic challenge: Sha'arei Teshuvah rules that one must eat something - discreetly! - outside the Sukkah. That is, to remind ourselves that for us Israelis, the Sukkah holiday is completely over, we are supposed to, in the middle of a holiday meal at a very polite American family, somehow slip away from the meal with a piece of sushi in our pocket, and eat in one of the corners of the house, quietly.
By the grace of God, we were spared the latter, as the rainy weather did not allow for sitting in the Sukkah on Shemini Atzeret. And by the way, that's the only good thing I can say about the weather here on Sukkot. Although I understand that this year the weather in Israel also blew the thatch away for some people, and no pun intended.
3.
And there was something else that surprised me. It doesn't concern Yom Tov, the second day, but rather the first. Abroad, the holiday that ends Tishrei is divided into two: The second day is Simchat Torah, in which people dance in circles, and go up to the Torah, and do "All the Boys" and jump in the air with "Moshe Emet." All of this - only on the second day.
On the first day, Shemini Atzeret, nothing is done. No sign of Simchat Torah. Everything is saved for the second day. I always knew that people from abroad do laps on the second day. But I really didn't know that people from abroad don't dance on the first day.
Now imagine what a strange holiday we went through: On the first day, which was for us a Simchat Torah in every sense, we made Kiddush and prayed the holiday prayers, but that was it, that was the end of it. Then, when the first day was over, we quietly made Havdalah at home and hurried to run to the synagogue for laps where we didn't really feel like we belonged. After all, we had only just distinguished between the holy and the profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and those who live among the nations.
And this morning it happened again: I put on tefillin in the closed room of the house, not before I closed the blinds, and then we hurried to organize the children because the "all boys" aliyah was coming up soon. On the way to the synagogue, the oldest son remarked to me: "Dad, I see signs of tefillin on your head!" Oh. I hurried to try to fix my hair. To keep it "modest.".
When we arrived at the synagogue, the Americans were as usual very nice, and even honored me with singing a line from "From the Mouth of God." I did it half-heartedly. Both because I was ashamed, and also because I was full of halachic doubts: What is the ruling on a son of Israel who intends to return to the land regarding singing "Tzo Ne'am, Tzo Ne'am" on the second Yom Tov of Galyot? I wonder if one of the three books has an answer to this.
At the end of the lap, one of the worshippers approached me and with a cynical smile said: "Git Yom Tov, well, how is it to celebrate Yom Tov Monday? Can you maybe come to our house to fix the air conditioner?""
4.
After the prayer, I began my Ha-Ri'ah days. Yes, Yom Tov Shani, not Yom Tov Shani, but I will not give up on the regular study, as is the custom of Beit Abba on every holiday, of the wonderful book in which Rabbi Neriah describes the cycle of the year in the company of his great rabbi, Rabbi Kook. And there I discovered pages that I had not noticed all these years: Between Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret, there is also an entire chapter called "Yom Tov Shani of Exiles." A chapter that is all about love of the land and dislike of exile. Ideas, sermons, letters, and especially stories.
""Great was the spiritual suffering of the late Rabbi Zacharias, who was stranded abroad at the outbreak of World War I," is how the chapter begins, and it includes a letter in which Rabbi Kook recounts the difficult Shmini Atzeret he endured in Switzerland in 1915. Oh, I'm not alone. The following is a quote from the Rabbi from the book 'Habesh Peer' in which he essentially explains the spiritual need for an additional day of holiday in the Diaspora: "The expansion of practical existence, even though it comes from the side of sufficiency, is what gives existence and salvation to the people of God and restores the Holy Spirit in their hearts.".
In other words, those who do not live in the land need - as a kind of spiritual salvation - a double dose of holiness. And here is another quote: "The necessity of exile, which causes a weekday to be adorned with the splendor of holiness, dispels the impression of the cumbersome sabbath in the land of the nations, and brings closer all those who were exiled from their land and distanced themselves from their land, to the original content of the holiness of time connected to the place of our life's home, the land of life and the desire of the worlds.".
Do you understand? The holiness that the inhabitants of the Land of Israel absorb in 24 hours, the "clumsy" ones from abroad need 48 hours to absorb.
5.
A large part of the chapter deals with the answers the Rabbi gave to foreigners who came to ask him how to conduct themselves during their visit to the country.
""When tourists would come to ask the rabbi about their conduct in the Land of Israel on the second day of exile," writes Rabbi Neriah, "the rabbi would find a way to inspire them and encourage them to think about the possibility of settling in the Land.".
The halachic term "intention to return" is actually the determining factor in this issue: whether a foreigner who visits the Land of Israel intends to return abroad, or does he want to settle here in the Land of Israel. The rabbi said that this expression, "intention to return," hints to us what the soul of Israel yearns for in its innermost being. "Every person from Israel who has come to the Holy Land, tasted its flavor and atmosphere, no longer wants to return. But more than once, from the conditions of the situation that tie him to abroad, his home, his business, his family, etc., the practical calculation obliges him to return, but this is only the action of the brain and not the action of the heart. His intellectual intention is to return, while his inner desire, the desire of the heart, is not to return, but to remain in the land of his ancestors' desire.".
• The column is published in the newspaper 'Bisheva''
