October marks the end of the Jewish fall holiday season — a season full of celebration, spiritual depth, and time spent with family — with the grand finale of Simchat Torah, Rejoicing in the Torah.
While many Jewish holidays are biblical in origin, Simchat Torah came into practice much later.
Great scholars and community leaders called Geonim, who aided in spiritual and legal matters from the 6th-11th centuries, developed the holiday, partially to reflect an innovation in the Torah-reading cycle in the synagogue.
Prior to the Geonim, the entire Torah was read in the community over a period of three years. The Geonim changed this cycle to annual, so that the entire Torah was chanted over the period of only one year.
Increasing the amount of Torah read by three times in and of itself is a great reason to celebrate. But what we find in the content of first and last Torah readings is even more significant.
The last book of the Torah, Deuteronomy, ends with the death of Moses, the great teacher, leader and prophet of the Jewish people. The first book of the Torah, Genesis, begins with the creation of the world. On the holiday of Simchat Torah, we read both the end and the beginning of the Torah. This juxtaposition symbolizes that beginnings come from endings, from death emerges life.
Simchat Torah is a celebration of transitions. This holiday gives the Jewish people a sense of closure and a ritual for opening a new chapter.
Spiritually significant actions that acknowledge transitions are critical to helping people understand and find meaning in different periods of life.
Judaism is replete with ceremonies to acknowledge different life transitions; and as Judaism is an evolving religion, each generation develops new rituals that have greater personal significance than what has been done in generations past.
Marking transitions is important to do as a people, as we do in Simchat Torah — important to individuals, as people move from one stage of life to the next, and to communities.
For the Jewish community, the fall season marks a one year celebration of the expanded Milwaukee Jewish Federation Israel Center. MJF also revived a tradition of opening our community campaign with a ritual, or event — the campaign kick-off on Sept. 17.
Whether as a Jewish people, the Milwaukee Jewish community or in our own lives, the Jewish tradition provides many ways to mark endings, beginnings and transitions. An evolving religion, we develop new rituals along the way.
As we celebrate ending one Torah cycle and reading the story of creation again, let’s think of how this new season finds us changed and of what we can do to feel the effect transitions make.
Rabbi Hannah Greenstein is vice president of Outreach, Israel and Overseas for the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.
Loading ...