The Hebrew month of Tishrei is one long marathon of Jewish rituals. We blasted into this month with Rosh Hashanah. We raised ourselves up with the White Fast of Yom Kippur. We entered the comfort of Sukkot's shelter. We are now in the last hurrah of Tishrei with the holiday of Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Tomorrow evening, we will light the candles for the holiday on which we read the last words of the Torah and — immediately after — begin again by reading the first words. Traditionally, everyone in the congregation receives an aliyah on Simchat Torah.

(The day on which this ritual is performed varies by movement and by congregation. In the Reform congregation I serve, we will celebrate Simchat Torah on Friday night).

People often ask me about this practice. Why do we not start reading the Torah anew on Rosh Hashanah when we begin the Jewish year? Why is the Torah reading cycle ended and begun on one of the most obscure of all Jewish festivals, when we are exhausted by all the other holidays of this month?

The Chasidic master known as Me’or Einayim (Menachem Nochum Twerski) explained that Simchat Torah is the day on which each of us is reconnected to Torah in a way that can only happen after all the other holidays of Tishrei are finished (Me'or Einayim, Emor). He said that since there are 600,000 letters in the Torah and there were 600,000 Jews who received Torah at Mount Sinai, we conclude that each Jewish soul has a spiritual connection to one of the Torah’s letters. Simchat Torah is the day on which each of us reconnects with our special letter. We can only do this after we have been purified by repentance on the High Holy Days and comforted by dwelling in the sukkah. On this day, each of us finally merits to have an aliyah — to come up to the Torah — to meet the letter that sings to our souls. 

Seen from this perspective, Simchat Torah is not just a day for rolling the Torah from one end to the other. It is the day on which we unroll ourselves to discover our unique place within the Torah. This is the task for which we have been preparing all month.

In what letter will you find your soul? Are you the letter Vav that begins the commandment, V’ahavta l’rei’acha kamocha, “Love your neighbor as yourself”? Are you the Zion of Zachor et Yom haShabbat l’kad’sho, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”? Are you the silent Aleph that yearns for God as it whispers, Ani Adonai Eloheichem, “I am Adonai your God”? There are a multitude of different kinds of Jews, each with his or her own place and mission in the cosmos of the Torah.

You have traveled a long journey to reach this day. You have listened for the voice of the divine in the shofar’s blasts. You have dug deep into your past mistakes to seek atonement. You have sat under the roof of the sukkah to contemplate the stars. Now comes the culmination, the moment of ascending into Torah to discover your soul.


Other Posts on This Topic:
End Beginning End Beginning
Vayakhel-Pekudei: Being a Dwelling for God

Simchat Torah is the only day on which we read the very last portion of the Torah, Vezot Haberachah. It is the only Torah portion that is not read on a Shabbat. It lies outside the usual cycle of weekly Torah readings so that it can be read just on this one day of the year. 

Vezot Haberachah tells the story of the very last hours of Moses' life and it tells the story of his death. Moses offers a final blessing to each of the tribes of Israel, then he climbs to the top of Mount Nebo, where God shows him the full extent of the land that he has spent a lifetime trying to reach. In the end, though, God tells him that he will not be permitted to enter the land himself. Instead, he dies on the mountaintop and is buried there by God. 

The text makes a point to say that "to this very day, no one knows where his grave is" (Deuteronomy 34:6). Moses leaves no shrine where his descendants can go to worship at the site of his bones. His legacy, instead, is only in this profound declaration: "Never again in Israel did there arise a prophet like Moses who knew Adonai face to face." The death of Moses marks the final curtain. The End.

Until the next beginning.

The reason why we read these words only on Simchat Torah is that they can never be the final words. As soon as we finish the story of Moses' death and burial, we immediately start anew by reading a single aliyah from the very beginning of the Torah. Tradition teaches that it should never be said, "the Jews have finished studying the Torah," and so we don't. We go straight from the end to the beginning. 

This is a lesson beyond the simple idea of devotion to our studies. The Torah imitates the true shape of our lives. Nothing is ever finished. Every challenge we face in life is merely the prelude to the next. Every closing introduces us to new vistas to be discovered—just as Moses, in his final moments, looked out from Mount Nebo to see the place where the next chapter in the life of the Israelites would be played out.

Even death is not an ending. The Jewish ideal of a meaningful life is one that continues to matter. For such a life, death is no obstacle or barrier. The significance of our life continues into the next chapter of our families, our communities, the Jewish people and the world. There is no end.

This is who we are. We Jews are the people of "end, beginning, end, beginning." Throughout history, we have known many endings. The First Temple ended. The Second Temple ended. Prophecy ended with Malachi and the Mishnah was completed by Rabbi Judah HaNasi. The Golden Age of Spain ended with the expulsion of 1492, and the great Jewish communities of Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Germany ended with the Holocaust.

Except that they didn't. Just like the life of one individual persists, so does our people. We keep reinventing ourselves, rediscovering ourselves, redefining ourselves to be reborn in a new age. Just as they say about Torah, so it is true of the Jewish people—"Turn it over, turn it over, because everything is inside of it" (Pirkei Avot 5:26).


Other Posts on This Topic:
Sh'mini Atzeret: Prayer for Rain
The Light that Defies Death