Lessons From a Torah Dance
Imagine the following scene. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court together with the other judges, propose a law, namely that the law itself is a wonderful thing. They resolve to set aside a day each year to celebrate it. They compose songs in its honor. When the day comes, they each take a weighty tome, “The Legal Constructionalist Approach to the U.S. Constitution” would do nicely, and dance round the White House, crooning at the top of their lungs.
Impossible! Yet, this is precisely what Jews do on Simchat Torah , literally “Rejoicing in the Law.”
Simchat Torah .
Identifying Jews as the “People of the Book”, is an understatement. We are a people because of the Book. It is more than our constitution, it is G-d’s love letter to us. As such, we not only read it in synagogue, we pore over it incessantly.
In truth, Simchat Torah is not mentioned in the Torah nor in the early Rabbinic literature. Indeed, it only exists as a day in its own right outside Israel. Unlike Purim (another day of joy) which recalls the first warrant for genocide against the Jews, (a festival against anti-Semitism, so to speak), Simchat Torah is the polar opposite, a day that celebrates Judaism. Thus the holiday was legislated, not by a supreme Rabbinic Council nor because of any crisis. It rose to the surface from the hearts of the simple Jews on the street who understood what made them different. They were the people who carried G-d’s word, even as the Word carried them. In the absence of a physical home, it was their spiritual home and joy.
The French Tosafists (circa, 1200-1300 C.E.) ask the following question. We make a set of blessings each morning over the study of Torah. But there is a rule that blessings over commandments are only effective as long as there has been no intervening distraction. How then can the blessing we make in the morning serve for an entire day? Their answer (which was true for them) is that even though we may have hours in which we are not learning, we are not distracted, because we are continually thinking about the moment when we will be free to start studying again. For centuries, learning was Jewish life itself.
Only in relatively modern times did this tradition weaken and Jews began to think of Torah study the way the West views education. It is something you do as a child, the acquisition of basic knowledge and skills. This was a serious error and cut off Jews from our deepest source of inspiration.
In Judaism, learning is to the mind what food is to the body. Just as you don’t give up eating when you become an adult, so you don’t give up learning. As we grow, so our understanding of Judaism grows, because we are in continuous dialogue with it. Judaism is a supremely adult faith, deep, complex, subtle, vast, and one that rewards each encounter with a new insight, a way of seeing things that we hadn’t seen before.
That is the role of a Rabbi. He is the ‘scholar-in-residence’, the community educator. To be sure, he fulfills many other functions: pastor, counselor, friend. But there is no relationship more precious in Judaism than that between Rav and talmid, teacher and disciple. Judaism is a fellowship of learning. But it is not the kind of knowledge one can acquire from the daily news, because Judaism is countercultural. Our values are not the values of the world around us. We believe in marriage and the family. We attach importance to the idea of community. We are convinced that morality is objective. Not everything we feel like doing is right. The timeless wisdom of Jewish life stands in sharp opposition to the value-free culture which is currently in vogue.
Thus we dare not take serious Jewish learning for granted, and that includes our respect for law. As we have seen in so many of today’s failed or rogue states (Iraq, Sudan, etc.), it is not easy to create a Rule of Law. Yet without it, there is no freedom, justice, or basic human rights. Law is humanity’s non-violent form of conflict resolution. That is why Jews see law as G-d’s most precious gift, and why we still try to spend as much time as possible studying it.
Law tells us that we are all equal under the rule of justice, that might is subordinate to right, that everyone is entitled to a hearing, and that they will be treated fairly. Law insists that wrongdoing must be called to account.
Other cultures have found it hard to understand the Jews love of Torah. To them it sometimes seems like an obsession with detail. But as we now realize, Torah speaks to society, as much as it does to the soul. It therefore represents the idea that there is no facet of life that cannot be sanctified and turned into the service of G-d: eating, relationships, the workplace, the economy, or justice.
When law rules, we have time and energy for higher things. When it fails, all that is left is misery and fear. Which is why, once a year, Jews dance with the Law in a circle, with the Torah at its center. In celebrating Simchat Torah we celebrate everything and everyone. We celebrate what Torah has to say about marriage and business, learning and recreation, about holidays and workdays, about respecting parents and raising children. It speaks to the scholar and the ignoramus, the pious and the wicked. It addresses all values and all people. In short, when we dance with our Torah, we celebrate everything, and more important, everything we can be.
Amongst my childhood memories, watching the adults dancing with the Torah scroll held aloft for all to see, while I played along with my child’s toy, an imitation Torah, makes me feel young again. Even then, at that age, I sensed something mysterious about this strange book that looked quite unlike any other. You could see the reverence mixed with wild joy everyone had for it. What a heady combination.
So grab a Torah and feel the full weight of what it means to be a Jew. Simchat Torah is not an afterthought. In some ways, it is the holiday that gives everything else perspective.
Perhaps the Justices in Washington (though they can’t read Hebrew) could learn something from our Torah…even when it’s wrapped up and closed.