Simhat Torah Teachings

SIMHAT TORAH

“Rejoice and Be Glad in Simhat Torah”

Shemini Atzeret/Simhat Torah, the final festival of the Jewish calendar, is described as an intimate rendezvous between God and the Jewish people. Unlike Sukkot, there are no “official” mitzvot, no external, physical symbols of the holiday. Instead of seven days, a number symbolic of completeness and fulness of all Divine aspects, there is but one day. (In both of these respects, it is analogous to Shavuot, which is similarly called “Atzeret,” and also a festival centered around Torah) Rather than the seventy bullocks sacrificed during the course of Sukkot, seen as symbolic of the nations of the world, there is but a single one. The midrash speaks of God asking Israel to tarry with him one more day, comparing him to a king who made an elaborate celebration for his extended entourage, at whose end he asks his closest and most intimate friends to stay for one more day, to say goodbye in a more intimate way. “It is hard for me to part from you” (b. Sukkah 55b; Num. Rab. 21:25).

The Hakkafot (processions) of Simhat Torah open with a series of biblical verses, the first of which is, “You have been shown to know that the Lord is God, there is none other but him” (Deut 4:35). This last day is the culmination of the “spiritual knowledge” that is the theme of all the festival of Tishrei:[1] the knowledge that there is ultimately naught but God. Paradoxically, it is both an intimate holiday, and simultaneously one marked by an outburst of ecstatic joy.

Another verse recited before the Hakkafot is “And it shall be said on that day: Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited; this is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his deliverance” (Isaiah 25:9). An interesting aggadah in the final lines of Tractate Ta’anit (31a) relates that “God will make a dance for the righteous in the Future; each one shall point with his finger [upon seeing the Divine glory, visible to their eyes], and say ‘this is the Lord for whom we have waited!...’” Rav Soloveitchik once contrasted the synagogue processions of Sukkot and Simhat Torah as follows: During Sukkot, the Jews stand on the periphery of the circle, holding in their hands the lulav and etrog, an “object of mitzvah,” while the Torah scroll is in the center. On Simhat Torah, the Jews holding the Sifrei Torah are on the periphery, while there is seemingly nothing in particular in the center. But no: in the center, invisible to eyes of flesh and blood, is the Divine Presence. The Jews dancing on Simhat Torah anticipate the eschatological dance of the righteous.

What is Simha?

What do we mean by simha (“joy”) anyway? When we wrote last week about Sukkot and the dwelling in the Sukkah as a locus for our joy, we described it as a kind of calm, contented, tranquil joy in which each person feels happiness in simply being in God’s good world. But there is another kind of simha: the energetic, intense, at times even ecstatic and explosive atmosphere generated at great public gatherings such as the Hakafot of Simhat Torah or the Simhat Beit ha-Sho’evah in olden times.

One may learn much about simha from a close reading of Mainonides’ presentation of the concept of Simhat Yom Tov, “rejoicing in the festivals,” in Hilkhot Yom Tov, 6.17-21, as well as from his remarks at the end of Hilkhot Lulav (8.12-15). This can be done, first and foremost, by a negative process of elimination.

First, simha is inconsistent with selfishness. Rambam lambasts those who celebrate the festival in the closed circle of their family and friends, “locking the gates of his courtyard,” all the while ignoring the poor, unfortunate and embittered (this presumably includes the lonely). Such a festive meal is not a “simha of mitzvah” but simhat kereso, “a celebration for his own stomach.” Simha must go with Hesed, with acts of loving kindness to others (§18).

Second, true simha is sharply contrasted with holelut and kalut rosh (§20): frivolity and emptiness, what might be called in good colloquial American “fooling around.” Many people equate “joy” with foolishness, with license to perform practical jokes, or with the often vulgar, standardized humor of professional comedians.

Third, true simha is inconsistent with lewdness, with intermingling of the sexes for questionable purposes. Rambam calls upon community officials to be vigilant against flirtatious gatherings in the “gardens and orchards or by the rivers” on festive days (§21). This comment was of course rooted in a very traditional society, with very strict norms of separation of the sexes. For those of us who advocate a society that is “mixed but modest,” the same issues present themselves, albeit with different implementation. Unfortunately, there are places where Simhat Torah is notorious for degenerating into a gigantic mixer.

Fourth, simha involves a certain spiritual goal. The Talmud (Beitza 15b) is much exercised to find the proper balance between sacred and profane activities on the holidays: “for God” and “for yourselves.” On the one hand, as we human beings are creatures of flesh and blood, the festive meal is an integral part of simha: “there is no joy without meat and wine.” Indeed, the more spiritual the message of the holiday—as in the case of Shavuot—the more essential it is that it be celebrated davka with physical expression. On the other hand, a significant part of the day must be spent in religious spiritual activities: study, prayer, etc. (§19).

Having defined the negative parameters, Maimonides also gives a succinct positive definition of simha: “to be joyous and good hearted, he and his household” (§17), and that this joy involve “the service of the Creator of All” (§20).

But that is not all. In Hilkhot Lulav, he describes how, during Sukkot, there was simha yeteira, a greater rejoicing than the regular rejoicing of the other festivals. He refers by this to Simhat Beit ha-Sho’eva, the “Rejoicing of the House of the Water Drawing,” a special celebration held in the Women’s Courtyard of the Temple, with torches, musical instruments, and pious men “dancing, clapping, leaping, twirling, jumping,” etc. He adds that one who refrains from participating in this uninhibited rejoicing out of pomposity and a sense of his own self-importance commits a sin (Lulav 8.15).

I believe that our own rejoicing during Simhat Torah derives in part from the sense that Sukkot is an appropriate time for “extra rejoicing,” transferring the aura of Simhat Beit ha-Shoe’va from the intermediate nights of the festival to the final day, and from the subject of water to that of Torah (which are symbolically related). Interestingly, almost the identical words as are used above by the Rambam (and the Mishnah) are used in describing the behavior of Gaon of Vilna during Simhat Torah, adding that “wisdom enlightened his face, which shone like a burning torch” (Ma’aseh Rav, in Siddur Ishei Yisrael, p. 519).

I will conclude with a description of Simhat Torah as it was celebrated just over a hundred years ago, in the Polish town of Zakroczym:

On the afternoon of Shemeni Atzeret and the early evening of Simhat Torah, the members of each society would gather in the home of its leader or in the home of the gabbai of that month for a “festive meal.” This was a light repast, at which they would drink and enjoy various pastries, kechlakh, smoked fish, lentils, fruit and the like. My brother, the rabbi [i.e, Rabbi Yonah Mordecai Zlotnik], visited each group, tasted something, and spoke about the significance of the day. He then went on to the next society, accompanied by the leaders of the group, by the light of a special lantern carried on a pole (with the name of the particular society written on the glass of the lantern). Finally, he was accompanied by all of them to the Hevra Kaddisha [Burial Society]. From there, while holding a Torah scroll, he was led under a huppa [canopy used at weddings] with songs and music, accompanied by the entire congregation and all the lanterns, to the synagogue for the Hakkafot [the dancing procession with the Torah scrolls that is the central feature of Simhat Torah]. One who has not seen this rejoicing, will find it difficult to believe that it took place in our town, in the exile of Poland. Yet even when Messiah son of David comes—may he come speedily in our day—the joy of Simhat Torah will not be greater than that of Simhat Torah in Zakroczym in those days.[2]

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[1] Thus the shofar is connected with knowledge: “Happy is the people that know the shofar blast”; as is the sukkah: “that your generations may know that I have caused them to dwell in booths when they went out of Egypt.”

[2] Judah Leib Avida-Zlotnik, “From the Notebook of the Hevra Kaddisha of the Community of Zakroczym, Warsaw District” [Hebrew], in Reshumot: Memoirs, Ethnography and Jewish Folklore, 5 (Tel Aviv: Devir and the Israel Ministry of Education Ministry of Education and Culture, 1953), pp. 104ff.

Closing the Circle

On Simhat Torah we finish reading the Torah, and straightaway begin again. Thus, the Torah is in a sense transformed from a linear entity, with a beginning, middle, and end, into a continuous circle, whose “end is anchored in its beginning and its beginning in its end” (an oft-quoted saying, which I believe first appears in the Zohar). Thus, many Hasidic teachings for Simhat Torah—the day on which the linear is transformed into the circular, perhaps yet another meaning for the dancing in circles that marks this day—deal with the inner connection between the opening and closing words of the Torah: Bereshit and le’einei kol Yisrael. The following, for example, is what R. Moshe Hayyim Efraim of Sudylkow has to say about this in Degel Mahaneh Efraim; Parshat vezot haberakah:

“And for all the great and awesome deeds that Moses did in the eyes of all Israel” {Deut 34:12]… “In the beginning” {Gen 1:1]. One might say regarding this, so as to anchor its end in its beginning, according to what my grandfather z”l [the Baal Shem Tov] said: The name Israel indicates that, when the Holy One blessed be He created the world, He would have returned it to its root in oblivion; but when He looked upon the creation of man, who is called Israel, then the world was sustained from naught to being. And this is alluded to in the name Yisrael: that is, yesh {being] and r’el. For the letter resh alludes to Hokhmah/Wisdom; aleph, to Da’at/Knowledge; and lamed to Binah/Understanding, all of which are also alluded to in the word ayin [i.e., the three intellective qualities of the Godhead]. And they were sustained by the beingness of Israel, as explained elsewhere.

As we saw a few weeks ago (HY IV: Yom Kippur), the intellective qualities within the Godhead are called ayin, perhaps because they relate to a realm that transcends materiality or, indeed, that is above any internal tension or differentiation. I do not know why the letters resh-aleph-lamed specifically relate to these three aspects.

It is important to note that the concept ayin does not mean nothingness in the usual sense of oblivion, non-being. Otherwise, it could not be identified with the sefirot of Divine intellect! Rather, it refers to undifferentiated being, the Divine essence that is content to reside within itself, in that place where all is divine: a realm of existence that we mortal beings cannot even begin to comprehend, let alone define or articulate. From the perspective of the Divine Nothingness, the choice to create being other than Himself was a radical and, if you like, risky one. Man is autonomous, independent, willful, and can get up to all sorts of mischief. The existence in God’s universe of an intelligent, free being is hardly a recipe for harmony, peace, or tranquility.

Interestingly, some psychologists, in speaking of the choice between life and death, see death as a symbolic return to the womb, to undifferentiated unity, to perfection. There is a certain seductiveness to symbols of peacefulness, total inactivity. (One is reminded of the scene in Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, in which the hero is tempted to lie down and rest in the snow, dreaming peaceful dreams—and thereby meet an icy death.) In a certain sense, the striving for perfection, for the Golden Age, for the lost Eden, for utopia (again, ou-topos, Greek for “no place”) is really a desire for oblivion—perhaps coming from the insight that living, however constructed, is a hard game. (See also Rashi’s comment at Gen 37:1, with its image of the righteous as being perpetually active; the wish to dwell in tranquility as contrary to their basic nature.)

And this is “Israel — In the Beginning.” That by means of Israel, whose name signifies yesh-ayin, being-nothingness—there comes about the emergence of being from nothingness, as above. This is, “in the beginning”—that is, the sustaining of the works of creation, that they not return to nothingness, is by means of the being of Israel. And understand. …

And one may also say, so as to connect the end of the Torah to its beginning: Israel—Bereshit. How when each person begins to study Torah, this is via the adage, “If there is no fear [of God] there is no wisdom.” And Israel is composed of the letters of yare’ shel, that is, shalem, as in Jerusalem. In other words, when he will achieve “complete fear-of-God,” that is, inner fear, he then may become a vessel for the attribute of wisdom, and there enters into him the aspect of “In the beginning,” that is, Wisdom, which is the entire Torah. And he begins the Torah from Bereshit…

(I don’t know how he makes the jump from yare’ shel to yare’ shalem.) In simple terms: “Israel” symbolizes proper, inner piety, fear of God, the ethical-psychological qualities needed to know God; while Bereshit symbolizes Wisdom itself, the primordial Divine Logos, which is attained as this prerequisite of “fear” is met. The point here is that the latter is dependent upon the former.

The Sukkah as Sacred Space

I wish to develop an idea at which I hinted in the postscript to my last page: namely, the sukkah as sacred space. There is a paradox here: Sukkot is, historically, a pilgrimage festival—in a sense, perhaps much more so even than Pesah. In theory, Jews were supposed to make pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year, but in practice, between the lines, the impression gained is that Sukkot was the most popular of these festivals, with throngs crowding the Temple courtyards for Simhat Beit ha-Shoevah, and other celebrations. Symbolically, too, it is connected with the dwelling of God in Jerusalem: its haftarot deal with messianic, even apocalyptic redemptions; as the third pilgrimage festival, it corresponds to the building of the Tabernacle, that follows the Exodus and Sinai in the Book of Exodus.

But the sukkah as we know it is a personal sacred space. The sukkah symbolizes Divine protection, “to dwell in the Shadow of the Holy One blessed be He,” sufficient unto itself. In Kabbalah, the skhakh, the covering of the sukkah, symbolizes makifin, the transcendent presence of God. Indeed, Habad Hasidim refrain from sleeping in the sukkah because of this overwhelming holiness, following the guidelines laid down by R. Yosef Yitzhak. (My friend and fellow parsha-sheet writer Yaakov Fogelman gets greatly exercised about this every year; but his must be understood as a classical case of conflict between straightforward halakhic and aggadic-kabbalistic thinking, which are legion.) The sukkah itself as defined as space: a minimum of three walls, covered with thatching, for which there are numerous stipulations; the mitzvah itself is simply to be there. In lieu of Temple, it is a kind of place where each individual can experience divine presence in an immediate way.

Lulav celebrates space in another way: the central ritual involving it, much elaborated in Kabbalah is in Hasidism, is the shaking of lulav to the six points of space; the four compass points, up and down. The four kinds, or seven items, symbolize the community, or the human body, or the Godhead: the four letters of the Divine Name, or the complete sefirotic system. Thus, the shaking of the lulav may symbolize the completeness or wholeness of God pointing in all directions, filling the entire cosmos. If the sukkah is makifin, transcendence, lulav is a symbol of divine immanence, in all places.

There is much more to b e said about the tension between centralized vs. decentralized experiences of holiness, as of that between linear and circular conceptions of history. That all these impinge upon the reality of our lives, may be seen from the fallout from that terrible day thee years ago when the courtyards of the Lord were coarsely trampled, igniting fire whose waves have made our lives a living nightmare ever since.

¶A short teaching from Midrash Pinhas by R. Pinchas of Koretz, one of the earliest and closest disciples of the Baal Shem Tov. This was sent me by Mark Kirschbaum with the comment that “it will blow you away.” R. Pinhas explains that da’at on Sukkot is linked to joy, and is a higher level of consciousness than that of Yom Kippur—just as a baby, when first born, does nothing but cry, but once he gets a little more developed, he develops the social smile.

Mourning and Festival Joy

At the risk of being thought morbid, I would like to share some thoughts about the relationship between mourning and festive joy. I had an opportunity to write this up in a letter to someone, and decided to share it with everybody. The halakhah states that a festival day not only suspends, but cancels the seven-day period of mourning, even if the close relatives of the deceased only observed shivah for an hour. Some years back I gave a talk on Shavuot night about this subject, when we experienced a dramatic example of this: a woman in the Ramat Eshkol community died during the pre-dawn hours of Erev Shavuot, was buried around 1 pm (with more or less the entire minyan in attendance), the family sat shivah for about two hours during the afternoon, and by the evening were considered to be in shloshim.

Much has been written about the therapeutic aspects of Jewish mourning ritual, and the central role played by shivah as a time for working out, in isolation from the hustle-bustle of everyday life, at least some of the pain and anguish of the death—through quiet talks with friends who visit, one by one, during the week following the funeral, through conversation among the family, and through the twice-daily home prayers. The question raised is: if this is so, then why should the relatives be deprived of this valuable experience merely because the death happened to occur close to yomtov?

I explained the underlying concept as follows: the Jewish people may be described as a series of concentric circles: 1) the nuclear family; 2) the local community, centered around the synagogue, which constitutes itself every time there is public worship, the minyan serving as a kind of microcosm of Knesset Yisrael; 3) the entire Jewish people living today; 4) Knesset Yisrael, past, present and future—the ultimate subject of the covenant with He who is past, present, and future.

When the basic family unit is irreparably disrupted by the death of one of its members—parent, sibling, spouse, child—every other member feels a rent in terms of his own place in the world, and needs time for that rent to begin to heal, through the familiar practices of aveilut, with all its various laws and customs which I need not repeat here. The family will need to realign and reconstitute itself after this death; it will never again be the same. Mourning itself symbolizes the person being outside of the normal circle of the community, in certain ways almost parallel to a menudeh or a metzora, one placed under the ban or a leper, who also do not even leave their homes.

The festivals of the Jewish year symbolize the intense, collective experiencing or reliving of an event of overwhelming significance for Klal Yisrael, the Jewish people as a whole: the Exodus on Pesah, the Epiphany at Sinai on Shavuot, collective cathartic forgiveness on Yom Kippur, etc. These events are so powerful that they somehow override the disruption of the microcosm that is the nuclear family and, at least on some metaphysical or spiritual level, leave the individual in a different place then he was during shivah, obviating the need to return to that degree of distancing from the center even after yomtov.

Of course, in practice things may not work out this way, and I can understand the feelings of those who feel the lack of a “real” shivah, with several days to absorb the shock, etc. I know of cases—and cannot imagine any halakhic objection to such a practice—where people have set aside a kind of “non-shivah” shivah, a day or evening when they receive comforters in their home to talk about their loss. I know of cases where this was done, either because shivah was truncated by a festival, or where mourners living in Israel went to the US for the funeral of a parent (or vice versa), and held a “shivah” upon returning to their home community. On the other hand, it is important that people understand the inner logic of the halakhah and what it is teaching us about the meaning of the festival days.

Interestingly, there is a passage in the Gemara suggesting that in certain circumstances people made unofficial condolence calls during Hol Hamoed. Sukkah 41b describes the pious men of Jerusalem, who would hold their lulav wherever they went during the course of the hag: “He goes to visit the sick and comfort the mourners, and his lulav is with him.” What kind of nihum aveilim might be doing on yomtov or hol hamoed? When the Boston Hevrah Shas studied this passage with Rav Soloveitchik ztz”l, he cited a source (which I have been unable to locate) that “If someone died on him during yom tov, the public are to engage in comforting him” (rabim mitaskin imo lenahamo).