During Sukkot, we read from the biblical book of Kohelet or Ecclesiastes. Kohelet teaches us, “Enjoy yourself while you are young…make the most of your early days; let your heart and eyes show you the way” (Ecclesiastes 11:9). These are fitting words to hold close as Sukkot comes to a close and we begin our celebration of Simchat Torah tonight. Tonight, along with joyful Torah dancing, Torah reading, and words shared from TIOH congregants, we will offer a special blessing for all students in our schools who are new to Jewish learning.
On Simchat Torah, we read the last verses of the Torah, focusing on the end of Moses’ life, as well as the first words of the Torah, focusing on creation.
Often, in our daily lives, we experience time as linear (e.g. timelines and timetables). Our secular society likes to draw time in boxes and lines. Jewish time is deeply different. We experience Jewish time in cycles. Each day beginning anew, each week beginning anew, each month beginning anew, and most recently, a year beginning anew. Tonight Torah begins anew.
Why separate experiences at all, our tradition implicitly asks? On Simchat Torah, endings and beginnings are not two points on opposite ends of a line, but closely linked moments, touching in a circle. No neat boxes separating death from birth. But rather, we read in one fluid motion Moses’ death and the first word-acts of creation. Just like that, to life again.
Tonight, when we bless our newest students, they become like Torah itself. They are both beginning anew and inextricably linked to the young people they have already become. This is a blessing to mark who they have been, who they are, and who they will be. Within our community. Within their own lives. Tonight we consecrate them, that is to say we mark their lives and their learning as sacred, and in turn, they bless us by becoming the newest learners in our community.
“Enjoy yourself while you are young…make the most of your early days; let your heart and eyes show you the way.” Tonight, with joyful dancing and words of Torah, we all become young again. In our turning cycles, anything seems possible. New beginnings are the order of the day. On Simchat Torah, we let our hearts and our eyes lead us to a new cycle of living and learning. We celebrate those in our community who keep us young with their youthful joy and new ways of seeing. We commit ourselves to them as they commit themselves to us and our people.
Around and around, we dance. Flags and Torahs in hand. Life celebrated anew.
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