Simchat Torah reflections

The following reflections were made by Rabbi Miriam during the different parts of the Simchat Torah service this week. They offer further explanation, context, and moments of reflection, helping us hold the complex emotions of this time: gratitude, relief, awe, and tenderness. The return of the hostages has brought with it both tears and song, sorrow and celebration.

Before Hallel

Being Jewish is saying Kaddish and Hallel in the same breath.

For now, Hallel feels the predominant one, and so, so many lines of what we are about to sing feel perfect for this moment, welcoming back all the living hostages after two awful years. So let’s bring the spirit to these words that they deserve. 

Before Ata Haraita

Rachel Goldberg Polin quotes Kohellet:

"who says there is a time for everything, a time to mourn and a time to dance:

…now today we are being asked to

digest all of those seasons, all of

those times at the exact same second.

Winter, spring, summer, fall. Experience

all four right now.

It says there is a time to be born and a

time to die. And we have to do both

right now. It says there's a time to

weep and a time to laugh and we have to

do both right now.

It says there is a time to hug and a

time to hold back from hugging. And we

have to do both right now. It says there

is a time to tear and a time to heal.

And we have to do both right now. It

says there is a time to be silent and a

time to speak. And we have to do both

right now. And it says there's a time to

sob.

And there's a time to dance

and we have to do both right now.

Jews all over the world are

starving to celebrate and be done with

this dark chapter.

Being miserable and in pain is tiring.

Believe me, I know.

How do we hold these paradoxical and yet

appropriate sensations at the same time?

Please, dear God,

let us do it with delicate tenderness

and holiness toward each other.

After Ata Hareita

Now we shift gear. The kavvanot draw attention to the fact that the words of the hakafot are not joyous and happy. We might usually sing them joyously, with kids on our ,shoulders. But at their essence they are appeals to Hashem

“Ana HaShem—hoshia na! Ana HaShem—hatzlihah na! Ana HaShem—aneinu veyom koreinu!” “Please, God—save us! Please, God—give us success! Please, God—answer us on the day of our crying out!”

They are a version of the hoshanot from Sukkot, but this time holding not lulavim but sifrei Torah. This year, their true meaning really comes to light. Over to Yehuda. 

Leining cycles

'Vezot habracha', which we read over and over again until everyone who wants has had an aliya, is the last parasha in the Torah and includes the blessings that Moshe gives each of the tribes. If you have a sense of deja vu on this - other than from this time last year, it’s because at the end of the book of Bereishit, Yaakov blesses his 12 sons. Here, the 12 sons, literally bnei Yisrael - sons if Israel, have become 12 tribes, the bnei Yisrael. The nuclear family has become a people. So we end the Torah with the lyricism and occasional bluntness of the elderly Moshe.

Kol Hanearim

There is the tradition that once a year on Simchat Torah, all the children are given their own aliya to keep them going until their own bar or bat mitzvah, so we are now going to lead that bracha for all the children here today. 

Chatan Torah

The idea of a Chatan Torah probably comes from the role of Chotem Torah - the sealer of the Torah. But because Chotem sounds like Chatan it became an honour given to someone. Ours is an amazing duo, Georgina & Joshua Gavzey. Georgina will be called up and then Joshua is going to lein the section in which Moshe finally dies, in an undisclosed location, and then Joshua - the historical Joshua - steps up into leadership. Rashi brings a midrash that Moshe wrote the final verses of the Torah, about his own death, with tears in his eyes. 

With Moshe’s demise, so closes the five books of Moshe, so ends our Torah, for all of 5 minutes until we start it again. 

Kallat Bereishit

Now we call up Olivia to start us all over again, with words I find thrilling each year as we read of how God created the heavens and the earth out of the chaos of tohu va vohu, building up each day to the world we live in today, with God’s observation that everything was “good”, and that the creation of humans was “very good”. We today must live up to that epithet. 

Roll to Maftir 

While we roll, which I like to see as the Torah’s own circle dance, just as we danced around it this morning, a short kavvana that we should lean into the circles and cycles of this time of year. 

R.Alex Israel wrote on FB yesterday:

"One of the interviews that brought me to tears today was with Idit Ohel, the mother of freed hostage Alon Ohel, who is a talented pianist. They asked her what Alon had asked about the period (2 years!!) that he had been away. And she said that he knew there had been a war, so he asked if his friends were safe and well. He also asked after all the people who had hid with him in the “migunit/shelter” on 7 Oct.

But what he had no idea, no inkling about, she said, was the huge campaign to free the hostages. He asked her:

“Why are people holding up my picture? I don’t even know them!”

And he was astounded at the crowds in “hostage square.” He simply could not begin to fathom the huge mobilisation to free the hostages.

He doesn't know anything about it, never mind the yellow pianos (set up especially for him). At some point we'll explain:

"In every Jewish community over the past two years, people have rallied for the hostages. The Jewish solidarity, the כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה  means that we refused to abandon our brothers and sisters.

Our unity is our secret power. It is quite eerie that this is precisely 2 years from that horrific Simchat Torah to this joyous one. A circle."

On Simchat Torah when we dance, we dance in a circle. We join hands and we dance around the Torah. And this circle is our fortitude, our strength. In a circle everyone is equal in some way, everyone joins hands. That unity brings God into the center. That sense of unity refused to give up on our brothers and sisters.

Our unity - this kind of circle - is our secret power.

Haftara

We are now going to read our Haftara, the beginning of the book of Joshua, picking straight up from the end of Devarim, because just as the Torah cycles back to the beginning, Jewish history moves forward. Here we face the heartbreak that Moshe is dead… and yet the people are to march forward. It includes two phrases that we could all have in mind - לֹא־יָמוּשׁ סֵפֶר הַתּוֹרָה הַזֶּה מִפִּיךָ This book of Torah is not to leave your mouth

Before benching

Every time we bench on Shabbat or chag, we say the most incredible words to start, that I personally will never see in the same way again. 

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת בְּשׁוּב יְהֹוָה אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים׃

A song of ascents.

When the LORD restores the exiles - or another translation: the hostages of Zion

—we see it as dreamers—

אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם הִגְדִּיל יְהֹוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה׃

our mouths shall be filled with laughter,

our tongues, with songs of joy.

Then shall they say among the nations,

“The LORD has done great things for them!”

הִגְדִּיל יְהֹוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים׃

The LORD will do great things for us

and we shall rejoice.

Today, let’s sing them with special intention!