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Right about now, in the latter part of Elul, I'm due for my annual moment of panic -- not about the impending High Holy Days or even my own checkered efforts at repentance (these have their own arcs of anxiety and relief) -- but about the fact that I've once again totally neglected planning for Simchat Torah.
Simchat Torah is what I think of as the caboose of a long train, the end of a series of interconnected holidays which runs for almost two months. Just to refresh your memory: we start with a full month of Elul self-reflection, which is escalated with the service of Selichot, which then leads us into the New Year at Rosh Hashana, which takes us into ten Days of Awe, culminating in the journey with the High Priest into the Holy of Holies in Yom Kippur. Then we go right home and prepare for the seven-day harvest festival of Sukkot, building our outdoor gazebos and hosting guests. The last day of Sukkot is Hoshannah Rabbah, the Great Hosanna, the day on which the water libation was poured on the Temple altar with great merriment. Then, because Sukkot is so happy that it can hardly bear to end, there is Shemini Atzeret, the "additional eighth day," whose center is importuning the heavens for rain, beating willow twigs on the ground in a simulated rainstorm. Then, finally… Simchat Torah.
On Simchat Torah we finish the annual cycle of Torah reading and roll back to the beginning. Completing the Torah and beginning again is traditionally a joyous moment, and the particular custom is to dance seven dances with the scrolls, each circuit around the shul growing in ecstasy. Then, at last, the sefer Torah is opened, and we call up the hatan/kallat Torah, the "groom[s]/ bride[s] of Torah." With their blessing we read the death of Moses and begin rolling backwards (gathering around the table as we do so, pointing out the scenes of the movie as they appear in reverse: "There is Moses' final poem, in two columns." "There are the Ten Commandments." "There is the shema with the extra-large ayin." "There is the Song of the Sea, with its calligraphy like waves." There are names we recognize: "Moses," "Aaron," " Miriam," "Joseph," "Rachel," "Jacob," "Esau," "Rebekah," "Sarah," "Abraham," "Noah," "the serpent!" "Eve," "Adam…" "Is that the Divine Name, or does that say 'yihyeh'???") And, as soon as the rolling backwards has been completed, without a moment's pause, we call our kallat breshit, our "Bride of the Creation," for many years now our beloved Rosamond Gumpert Jorgensen, and she reads, "In the beginning God created…"
We always have a nice minyan of people who come to dance with our treasured scrolls, to shake the shakers and clap and sing and sweat. But it's never quite the wild, over-the-top celebration that I remember observing in Mea Shaarim, the ultra-orthodox quarter in Jerusalem, when I was a student (I was observing rather than dancing because in most of the shuls there women weren't allowed in the door) or that Elie Wiesel describes seeing in the streets of Soviet Moscow, or even that I hear about in shuls in other places in the here-and-now.
This summer, at our women's retreat, I noted that in my experience it is usually harder to draw a community into ritual joy than it is into ritual mourning. Even people who have a happy disposition seem to move with a fairly whole heart into mourning the destruction of the Temple on Tisha B'av or confessing their failings at Yom Kippur. But ask people to clown around at Purim or dance with the Torah scroll, and it's a whole other matter. "I just can't get into it." "I can't relate to the story." "I can't just get happy on command." "That's not my way to express joy." "I'm embarrassed…"
I haven't had that many experiences with ecstatic dancing. I've probably mostly seen it in little scenes in movies about Hasidim. I have a raggedy cassette tape that I bought in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem back in 1980 -- I don't think it even had a case -- called Simchat Bayit B'alizah, "Celebration of the House of Joy," or something along those lines. It's basically a long, unbroken recording of a bunch of men dancing and singing -- in waves of escalating emotion, usually without any words, often with feet stamping, broken occasionally by periods of chanting, then back to the roaring, ecstatic sounds of Jewish religious dance. It's rough and beautiful and amazing, and I find myself jealous every time I listen to it.
What does it take to get into that space? I am personally plenty susceptible to joy and even ecstasy. I am often utterly transported on Shabbat morning by the simple sounds of a few of us singing morning blessings. But that loud, arms-around-the-shoulder, thundering, stomping kind of bliss -- how do those guys on my tape get there? I've paused here at my keyboard for a few minutes to think about rock concerts… Heaven knows I've been up on my feet, screaming my head off and jumping around plenty of happy times. And there was that magic moment of collective uprising that I was 100% part of, when David Cone pitched over Rickey Henderson's head, and Rickey ran all the way to third base.
Okay, so when I finally got to see the Grateful Dead, not so long before Jerry died, and I joined the whole Oakland Coliseum on my feet all night long, was I actually ecstatic? I was definitely blissed out, definitely carried away by the collective energy, by the huge and mesmerizing sounds, by the great fun of it all. I totally got out of my skin, became part of the one big wave that was happening there. I loved it! I came home and said it was the third best day of my whole life.
Same, really, with the Rickey Henderson moment. David Cone had been trying to fake him out six prior times, looking like he was going to pitch to the batter, then pivoting at the last second and throwing to first base instead. Mickey kept poking me, saying, "Just watch Rickey! Don't look anywhere else!" I could feel the crowd vibrating -- and when the wild moment came, there was a gigantic release. And I was part of it, jumping up onto my stadium chair and joining the one great roar.
Maybe Simchat Torah just needs to be a whole lot louder and more crowded. Maybe it needs to happen at the Coliseum, with neon Torah scrolls and fifty foot high dancing Hasids on video screens… A flowing bar would definitely get things moving one way or another. Mammoth amplifiers… A light show…
And/or it might need real, unguarded, un-nuanced adoration of the Torah scroll and what it contains. And this is not merely a matter of choreography.
This is purely projection on my part, but -- when I try to imagine the singers of the Simchat Bayit B'alizah, whom I am pretty sure are some sect of Hasidim at a celebration -- I imagine that they possess a kind of certainty about Torah that is different than my own. I project that they do not wonder whether or not God really inscribed the Torah with black fire on white fire. I fantasize that they don't get squeamish at the gory parts of Torah -- plagues, capital punishment, wiping out whole tribes --like I do. I imagine that they don't torment themselves with questions about how you can love Torah and still struggle so much with it. I imagine that they are wholehearted in their joy in Torah -- and that the loud singing and stomping is a natural outpouring of their adoring hearts.
Now I am pausing again here -- imagining a kind of dancing which manifests love of Torah as I feel it, maybe a bit more like the love I feel for the human beings I am most intimate with. I'm imagining a dance which is sometimes roaring and sometimes quizzical, occasionally irritated, now and then furious, often trying to see another side to what appears impenetrable. I'm imagining movements which feel sometimes like kissing and sometimes like throwing up my hands in exasperation. I'm imagining gestures which say, "I am in this relationship for life with my beloved, but sometimes I wonder how I'm going to make it through this next week." I am imagining steps which say, "It's totally worth it!" Interesting the wedding imagery that comes with Simchat Torah -- the bride/groom of Torah, the tallit-huppah that we lift over their heads as they bless. I actually love and adore my spouse much more than I ever loved Jerry Garcia, but the dance I do with him is more complex than just jumping and yelling.
The nicely-named sage Ben Bag Bag says of Torah, "Turn it over and turn it over, because everything is within it." (Avot 5:22) He goes on to say, "Reflect upon it and grow old and worn in it and do not leave it; for you have no better lot than that." And his friend Ben Hey Hey says, "In accord with the effort is the reward."
That's a dance I can fully imagine jumping up from my stadium bench to join. Happy -- and sad and mysterious and deep and lively and engaging -- Holy Days to us all, my dear community.
- Rabbi Margaret Holub
© 2008 Rabbi Margaret Holub
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Updated 09/01/2008 (rge)