“Before We Can Dance Again”
“Before We Can Dance Again”
From the desk of Rabbi David Lyon
This past week, the Jewish world celebrated Simchat Torah, “the joy of Torah.” It marks the renewal of the Torah reading cycle. On the holiday, we end the Torah reading with the last words of Deuteronomy (Devarim) and begin again with the words of Genesis (Bereisheet). But many people who entered the holiday stepped lightly and with some trepidation. They felt odd about openly celebrating Simchat Torah one year after we woke to the horrors that began on October 7th, and on the Hebrew calendar 22 Tishrei.
One Israeli Reform Rabbi, Yael Vurgan, who serves Sha’ar HaNegev in the areas nearest the Gaza border, suggested that the holiday needed a new name to diminish the focus on joy (simcha) but not the focus on Torah. After some options, she settled on “Sichat Torah,” or a conversation with Torah. Torah is, of course, a source of joy, but only because our engagement with it produces meaning, life, and joy for us, even when it follows sorrow. Her recommendation was that rather than dance and sing, we should temper our abundance of joy with meaningful and sincere engagement with Torah.
Such sincere engagement begins with study, but it’s the kind of study that places us in partnership with each other. In Hebrew, we call it “chevruta,” or dyads. In chevruta, we create conversations, questions, and even some disagreements about Torah’s meaning for us. The outcome, even if it’s fraught with disagreement, is better than if we studied alone and as long as the disagreements were for the sake of sacred understandings.
This past week, Congregation Beth Israel hosted New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. In his remarks and conversation with us, he urged us all to be, in his words, “more Jewy.” It was his way of saying that these times call on us not to retreat or to hide. Instead, citing his mother’s story about her own mother’s experience as a Holocaust survivor who had to hide from the Nazis, we should step in, engage in Judaism, and fly our Israeli flags, just like his mother put an Israeli flag in her window, today. It honors her mother’s experience and lets the world know that we’re not going to hide, again.
As Simchat Torah celebrates new beginnings, we can lean in, honor our heritage, and choose hope over despair. We can’t change the past, but we can address the future with conviction and courage that comes through Torah. This year, some might not dance with Torah as they’ve done in the past, but in time, as we study its purpose in our people’s experience, we’ll all have reasons to dance again with a full heart and spirit. How do I know? Because we have no other choice.
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, Ph.D., author of History on Trial, explained that we’re “af al pichen” Jews; that is, “despite it all Jews,” and “even so Jews,” a reference to an immigration ship that tried to run the British blockade to bring Jewish refugees from Europe to the new Land. When our backs are to the wall, we learn to survive. This year, perhaps Sichat Torah, but next year and well into the future, Simchat Torah! We’ll regain our footing and dance without reservation.
Am Yisrael Chai.
L’Shalom