Shabbat Gathering: Simcha Torah!
Dear Chevrei, We will NOT be gathering tonight for the Shabbat Gathering. Instead, you are invited to attend the congregation’s Simcha Torah service.
From Happenings:
We will gather for a Simchat Torah celebration at 6:15p tonight. We will have a brief service, roll the Torah, and do some dancing.
Here are the Zoom coordinates for tonight's observance of Simchat Torah:
Zoom link.
Meeting ID: 837 3038 0573
Passcode: 662730
Phone: 312 626 6799
Quick note to those who have recently joined the list. The synagogue's office gave me a long list of names collected during the High Holy Days. Those on the list expressed interest in joining this list and I've added you. If there's been an error, I apologize. Please feel free to unsubscribe yourself by clicking the link at the very bottom of this email.
Here we go.
One of my favorite Holy Days is Simcha Torah when we finish reading Torah and start all over again. It’s perhaps the most vivid reminder that Torah is a cycle, looping around from the end to the beginning again and again never ending, constantly renewed year after year. There’s always more Torah to learn. Simcha Torah is a joyful time. We dance around the synagogue with it cradled in our arms.
I found a poem for Simcha Torah on Ritualwell. It’s by Rabbi / Cantor Jill Hausman of The Actors’ Temple, Congregation Ezrath Israel in Manhattan. And it goes like this:
Poem for Torah on Simchat Torah
Each time, each time
And each year
We read the ancient words
Burrowing into the empty spaces
Between those words,
Feeling the wonder there
Letting them sink into us
As we become one with them,
Resting ever more deeply this year
In each line, each phrase
Each word.
Sinking into them and held mesmerized
In their embrace
The profound, expansive meanings
Washing over us, in us, and through us
Giving us a new glimmer of understanding,
Speaking to us of our ancient selves
And the life of our present heart.
This year may more of their secrets
Be unlocked
This year may we fall into them
And be caught there
Enveloped by their cosmic wisdom
Held more deeply than ever before.
And this I want to pass this along by Rabbi Avi Strausberg of Hadar:
Torah learning is not just an end in itself. Rather, the goal of learning Torah is nothing less than to transform our very selves into Torah and into holiness. It’s not just that we are people who sometimes perform holy actions; rather, in our essence, we embody holiness with every breath, every choice, every interaction. We aim not only to shape our actions through our study in a peripheral way but to actually become living embodiments of Torah and holiness itself.
And may it be for all of us a blessing.
See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!
All my love,
brian.
PS
Emily Hein
Evelyn Frick
-30-