For many readers, Succos is surely by now a distant memory. For me though, it has taken a bit longer to move on and ahead from the Yom Tov season. Our succah is no small matter to take down and store away — just one more reason I love it so much. But, at last, it’s in the garage (and it’s not even the block’s last succah standing — thank you, son-in-law No. 2).

And only this week did I gather up the brittle batches of hoshanas (and here I’m about to get in trouble) to surreptitiously haul them over to shul in a nondescript Amazing Savings bag and cast them atop the aron kodesh. There’s no statute of limitations on that, is there? Putting lulavim up there, however, would be frond upon, so I’ll store them away instead to be burned during bi’ur chametz (or so I tell myself — my wife and my memory know better).

Still, here and there, little vestiges of Tishrei persist. From its resting place on a shelf in my study, surrounded by the shriveled brown esrogim of years past, this year’s still-radiant pri eitz hadar sends forth an aromatic reminder of what was just weeks ago. And the yeshivah down the block is coming to the end of the Monday-Thursday-Monday series of Selichos known as BeHaB, recited post-Yom Tov to seek forgiveness for aveiros we may have done in the more spiritually-lax holiday atmosphere.

But the surest sign that the Yamim Tovim have taken leave is the leaves beginning to cascade down, or if a bit early for that, at least the fall weather that presages them. The crisp autumn chill we’ve experienced these last few Shabbos nights silently signals the arrival of the fall-time Shabbos I particularly enjoy. Oktoberfest, indeed.

Between the end of one festive cycle of Shalosh Regalim and its renewal next spring now looms a protracted winter season, stretching out over five long months — six, in this leap year. Longer nights, shorter days, harsher weather. The quotidian demands of work, school, commuting — life — piling up, taking their toll not just on bodies but on souls, too.

HOW WILL WE MAKE IT from one end of this challenging road ahead to the other? There are, of course, those spiritual refueling stops along the way known as Chanukah and Purim, and I can’t really imagine what we’d do without them. But is there nothing from the nearly two-months-long Elul/Tishrei odyssey to take along and sustain us through a Yom Tov-less Marcheshvan and most of Kislev, until those tiny lights first appear?

There is.

The Midrash teaches that Shemini Atzeres is Hashem’s way of telling His people, “It’s so hard to bear your parting from Me after Tom Tov. Stay on for another day, won’t you?” The non-Jewish nations, which had some connection to the Succos holiday through our bringing korbanos on their behalf each day, fade from view on this very last day. It’s only Him and us.

But, the seforim wonder: Doesn’t lingering in His presence for one more day only magnify, rather than mitigate, the sense of longing Hashem expressed? The answer lies in two things of great import that happen between us and Hashem on that day of maximal intimacy. First: We rejoice around the Torah, and with it, hugging it tight to our chests.

The Midrash tells the story of the king who gave his precious daughter’s hand in marriage to a prince, but, unable to bear her going off to a distant land, he asked the new couple, “Please — give me a little room in your royal castle in which to stay, so that I don’t really have to part with you.” Hashem has given the Torah to His people, but because he can’t part from it, he tells them, “V’asu li mikdash — build a mikdash in which I might dwell amongst you.”

Rav Simcha Bunim Auerbach ztz”l (a grandson of Rav Shlomo Zalman and son of the rav of Teveria) derives from this that the Torah is what draws the Shechinah to rest upon us, because it’s the Torah from which Hashem can’t part. The Beis Hamikdash is but the vehicle — in Gemara-talk, the heicha timtza — for the Shechinah to descend and take up residence in our midst. That’s why even post-Churban, the Shechinah moves exclusively to another address: the four amos of halachah, the yeshivos, and batei medrash.

The deep bonds with Torah we forge on Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah means, then, that the problem of Hashem’s longing for us is resolved. So long as we keep learning His Torah, He’ll be right there with us.

But something else also happens during our one-to-one encounter with Hashem on that day. He gives us a going-away gift, as we begin saying “Mashiv haruach u’morid hageshem.”

In the biographical notes that preface Ma’archei Lev, the sefer of discourses by the great Mashgiach of Gateshead, Rav Moshe Schwab ztz”l, the story is told (and was later retold in English by Rabbi Paysach Krohn) of one transformative Simchas Torah a young Moshe Schwab spent in the Mirrer Yeshivah. Lifted to great heights by experiencing that Yom Tov in the exalted company of Rav Yeruchem Levovitz and his talmidim, Moshe committed himself to a life of learning Torah despite the pull he felt to return home and assist his aging father in his business.

Shortly after the Yamim Tovim ended, a talmid chacham arrived in Mir from Baranovich, where Moshe had learned previously. He told Moshe that in a dream he’d had on the night of Simchas Torah, an elderly man appeared, directing him to deliver a message to a young man named Moshe Schwab, consisting of a homiletic rendering of a familiar four-word phrase: “Mashiv haruach” — we ensconce ruchniyus in our lives, and at the same time, “umorid hageshem” — we lower the extent and influence of gashmiyus in and upon them. Once the dream repeated itself, he knew it was time to seek out this Moshe Schwab fellow, even if it meant a journey to Mir. From a picture Moshe showed him, it became clear that it was Moshe’s grandfather in the dream.

IN A LETTER TO HIS FATHER, Moshe related the story of the dream, along with his fervent desire to remain in the world of Torah. His father’s reply wasn’t long in coming, borrowing the Torah’s words regarding another father’s response to a son’s dream, v’aviv shomar es hadavar, to convey his acquiescence to Moshe’s aspirations.

Two Yamim Tovim, bookending the winter, both conveying through different means the primacy of ruchniyus over gashmiyus: Succos, when we dwell in frail huts, poor in creature comforts yet rich in G-d’s abundant presence, when, after Yom Kippur’s cleansing, we relearn how to insinuate the spiritual into every last aspect of the material. And Pesach, when we adopt a strict seven-day diet of ethereal matzah and spurn bloated chometz, internalizing the message that less (gashmiyus) truly is more (ruchniyus).

And on the very last day of the former, Hashem calls us in and gifts us with four words to carry with us through the coming six months, right up until the first day of the latter. Four words to recite thrice daily, thereby to keep Elul and Tishrei alive in our minds and hearts, and cling ever more closely to that sefer Torah we clutched so tightly before stepping out into the cold.

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 732. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com