In Israel the eighth day also commemorates the completion of the annual cycle of readings from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and is called Simḥat Torah ("Rejoicing of the Law").
It's a cycle of readings that provides a chance to encounter almost the entire bible in about three year's time.
And year after year we repeat the cycle of readings and of wanderings - with Abraham from Ur to Haran to Canaan to Egypt and back again to Canaan, through at least seventeen different locations - with Joseph, and then with his father's household, into Egypt anew, and finally with Moses and the Children of Israel through a wilderness-wandering of many way-stations.
It does, however, raise the spectre of what James Grieve, co-artistic director of Paines Plough, calls "development hell," whereby a script get stuck in a spin-cycle of readings and workshops, but ultimately remains unproduced.
Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law) marks the annual completion of the cycle of public readings from the Torah.
William also wrote a Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis ("Compendium of Church Services"), which treated liturgical, or common, prayer, sacramental worship, and the annual cycle of scripture readings and chants.
The genius of the Church's lectionary -- its fixed daily cycle of Bible readings -- is that it puts together unrelated passages and lets them talk to one another.
It's hard to believe that a mere seven weeks ago we were dancing in the streets on Simchat Torah, the festival that celebrates both the conclusion and renewal of the annual cycle of Torah readings, and marks the end of the long fall holiday season, including the High Holy Days and the harvest festival of Sukkot.
And all this has now taken place - just yesterday - even as we arrive, in the Jewish cycle of Torah-readings, at the end of the book of Exodus and to the story of our people's completing, in the wilderness, the construction of a Dwelling Place for the Divine Presence.
The first factor is based on the process of accounting and the cycle of recording the readings of consumption in order to control the exact cost of energy.
Perhaps it's because of where we are in the cycle of weekly Torah readings, or perhaps it's because a day doesn't go by without stories of religious zealotry making the news.
