(Numb. 29:35:) “On the eighth day [you shall have] a solemn assembly.” Let our master instruct us: Is it permitted to eat outside the sukkah on the Feast (of Tabernacles)?<sup class="footnote-marker">39</sup><i class="footnote"><i>BB</i> 75a; <i>ySuk.</i> 2:7 (23a); <i>Suk.</i> 27ab.</i> Thus have our masters taught (in <i>Suk.</i> 2:6): R. Eliezer says, “One is obligated to eat fourteen meals in the sukkah, one [each] day and one [each] night.” But the sages say, “There is no prescribed number except [only] on the night of the [first] festal day [of the feast].” But why did the sages permit one to be freed from the sukkah on the last festal day? Simply because the whole seven days of the festival they had prayed for abundant dew, while on the last day they prayed for rain. They therefore were freed from the sukkah, so that they might pray wholeheartedly for rain. Nevertheless the last day of the holiday is reckoned as belonging to the days of the festival. Why? Because it is so written (in Numb. 29:35), “[On the eighth day] you shall have a solemn assembly (<i>atseret</i>).” Now it was fitting for it to come fifty days after the festival, just as Pentecost (<i>Atseret</i>) comes fifty days after Passover; but the Holy One, blessed be He, said, “It is winter and they will not be able to leave their houses to come here [to Jerusalem].<sup class="footnote-marker">40</sup><i class="footnote">Cant. R. 7:2:2; <i>PRK</i> 28:7.</i> Rather let them make the solemn assembly while they are [already here] with Me.” How is it shown? From what they read on the matter (in Numb. 29:35), “On the eighth day [you shall] have a solemn assembly.”