After a year of terrorism, war, and rising antisemitism, Jews worldwide are preparing to celebrate Simchas Torah tomorrow. This holiday marks the joyous completion of reading the entire Five Books of Moses and is observed with dancing, libations, and the immediate resumption of reading the Torah from the beginning, starting with the Book of Genesis.
Despite the commandment to be joyous on this sacred holiday, the celebrations will be tempered by the fact that many cannot join their Jewish brothers and sisters in dancing—the 60 remaining hostages still held captive by terrorists in Gaza.
Simchas Torah will also mark the anniversary on the Jewish calendar of the barbaric October 7 terrorist attack, which saw 1,200 people killed, thousands more wounded, and 250 kidnapped, including elderly Holocaust survivors and babies, on what should have been a festive celebration.
Rabbi Menachem Heller, who leads the Brooklyn synagogue Chabad of Bushwick, invites the community to join them tomorrow for a gathering to celebrate Simchas Torah. “Simchas Torah celebrates the completion of Torah study, but on this holiday, we don’t study—we dance. Everyone, even those who don’t study, has a soul connection to the Torah,” he says.
“Everyone comes to dance; there is no distinction.”
The celebration will take place at Chabad of Bushwick, located on Flushing Avenue near the Morgan L stop, and will include a buffet of traditional Jewish cuisine, dancing, and a L’Chaim (drinks celebration). The event starts at 6:30 PM, and all are welcome to join.
Simchas Torah marks the end of the Jewish High Holidays, following Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. It is customary for Jews to carry the Torah scrolls in their arms as they jubilantly dance in a circle seven times around the bimah—the podium in the middle of the synagogue from which the Torah is usually read. Each revolution around the bimah is called a hakafot.
While the practice of circling the bimah with the Torah is an ancient custom for the Jewish people, the tradition of specifically going around seven times is believed to have started in the 1500s by Rabbi Yitzchak Luria. The seven revolutions around the bimah are thought to represent the seven days of creation, symbolizing that God created the world so that the Torah could be studied and its commandments fulfilled.
Another Kabbalistic interpretation is that each hakafot corresponds to one of the seven divine attributes: chesed (kindness), gevurah (strength), tiferet (beauty), netzach (victory), hod (splendor), yesod (foundation), and malchut (kingship).
Sam Impellicceiri, a financial adviser who regularly attends Chabad of Bushwick, says that while it’s important to celebrate the joyous occasion, his heart aches for those who cannot.
“I do feel like my cup is a little less full knowing that there are people locked away from their families,” he said.
Struggling to feel joy on a celebratory holiday is nothing new for the long-suffering Jewish people. Beset by expulsions, forced conversions, pogroms, and death camps, many Jews have struggled to find reasons to be happy. The 18th-century Torah sage, the Gaon of Vilna, even said that the commandment to rejoice on Simchas Torah was the “most difficult” of all mitzvahs.
“Simchas Torah is something Jews celebrated even during the harshest times,” Rabbi Heller tells *Bushwick Daily*. “Even in Auschwitz, in the concentration camps… this is part of who we are.”
Last year’s holiday celebrations saw Chabad of Bushwick flooded with devastated congregants—many of whom rarely attend regular services—grappling with the aftermath of Hamas’ horrific onslaught.
“They needed a place to go where they could cry,” Rabbi Heller said. “People were crying and dancing, and that’s not a contradiction. That’s part of being Jewish—we have the ability to cry, dance, and celebrate our heritage, our religion, and our connection to the Torah, regardless of the difficult situations we’re in.”
In fact, baked into the completion of the Torah reading cycle is one of the saddest events in Jewish history: the death of Moses, the prophet who led the Jews out of bondage in Egypt and toward the Promised Land. The final scene in the Torah depicts the prophet’s death, and it was once common practice to mourn the loss of the man Jews call “our teacher” on this joyous holiday.
“When it comes to the essence of the Jew, which is the Torah, we have a reason to dance. It doesn’t mean we forget about the difficulties we face, but we know we have the Torah, and that’s a reason to celebrate,” Rabbi Heller said.
Chabad of Bushwick will be hosting a Simchas Torah celebration tomorrow, Thursday, October 24, at 6:30 PM. More information can be found at ChabadofBushwick.org.
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