On Simchat Torah: unraveling joy

There’s a story—I guess there’s always a story about things like this—that says God brought the Torah to everyone else before it was accepted by the Jews.

“Will you take this?” God asks.

“What is in it?” they say.

“My commandments.”

The Jews are supposed to have said, “All that God has commanded we shall obey.”

So God shows up and asks if you want 613 Laws. How to eat, when to cook, pray, do business, what holidays to observe, what to do when you wake up and what to put on the doorposts of your house; of course these are in addition to the basic ones, like do not steal, kill or commit adultery. The laws on keeping kosher (kashrut) require books unto themselves, and there are 39 activities forbidden on Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. These are only a tiny portion of the Laws. Yet the Jews took all of them.

According to the story, they did not ask why. But if ancient Jewry was anything like my relatives, I’ll never believe it. The Jews I know would never settle for anything without asking why.

Then there is another story. This one says if they didn’t ask why, there could only be one reason. They were asking, “Why not?”

The Torah was given at Mount Sinai, after the Jews escaped Egypt and Pharaoh’s armies. If God could free them so completely, they might have been thinking, how bad could his Torah be?

I am pondering this in a synagogue, listening to a man playing accordion. It is Simchat Torah, the holiday when we celebrate the Torah and begin reading it each year. I have been divorced a few months and know a few people slightly, but for the most part I am with strangers, and a very single stranger at that.

The accordionist plays a medley of Klezmer tunes. There are children everywhere, and watching them, I miss my four-year-old. I have begun the dance most divorced parents know, giving their child up for one holiday and taking him for another. Watching the families around me, I cannot help but wonder if I will ever feel at home.

The others begin singing.

“Torah Simchat Lanu, Moshe!”

We are singing “Torah brings us happiness, Moses.” But what does the Law really bring, and why do so few Jews pay attention? Only a small number of the Jewish people I know observe either Shabbat or kashrut. Yet here we are, dancing and singing in celebration of laws most of us barely adhere to, and that, at best, demand a discipline we don’t have.

I am struggling to figure out what I believe. I envy those who come to synagogue and drink deeply, because belief is never verbal. If you have it, I think, it lives at a level many layers deeper than where thought begins.

When I was little I attended a Jewish day school and the celebrations of Simchat Torah were in the school cafeteria, with music, balloons and caramel apples. The same caramel apples are in the synagogue here, arranged in shiny brown rows on a tray. I remember biting into the sticky-sweet side of the apple as a child; the hard, sugary candy mixed with the tart skin of fruit breaking apart in my mouth, and how it came to symbolize the pleasure of the holiday.

I think scores of other children grew up thinking this way, too. I read somewhere that when children read the first words of the Koran, they are given honey so they’ll think of something sweet when they read the words. Maybe the caramel, wrapped around the apples, is supposed to be like the wrapping of the Torah, which unravels when we bite into it. But do treats and songs make it easier to observe?

In Hasidic neighborhoods, people are dancing in long lines, singing, laughing and drinking wine. In a synagogue across town, my son is laughing, too. Now, someone next to me grabs my hand and suddenly I’m moving, the accordion music carrying me around the room, until I stop caring about rules or restrictions. All I feel is the music. Is that what Simchat Torah really is?

As if in answer, Torahs start appearing, and people drop out of line to carry them. My son’s father once told me a story about a village where they had no Torah. When the holiday came, they passed their babies around instead, raising them to the sky and kissing them. I think of my son, dancing around with a miniature Torah at his father’s synagogue. I cannot help but smile at the thought.

Sweets and children, song and laughter. We are celebrating joy, and the Torah is supposed to provide it. What?

The Torah I know does not ask us to be happy. Instead, it demands. To honor parents, do unto others, give to those less fortunate, consider the repercussions of our appetites. It tells us life is hard and we will want to escape it, to drown in someone’s breasts, drugs, shopping. It says there are limits, and to limit ourselves.

But it also tells us to celebrate. To bless the moment, taste it, revel in it, sanctify it, see a baby as holy and raise it high, like a prayer. Most of us might not remember all the Laws, but we will remember the sweetness. And in that sweetness, in the touch of someone’s hand or the sound of an accordion, we might realize that even though we are divorced, or single, or lonely, we are not alone; we are part of a fabric, a story, and a tradition that carries us through the centuries to home.

So if I was asked at this moment, would you take this Torah? I would say at least, I’m glad someone took them—even if we’re not able to keep them all.

Maybe, in a way, the rules make us more interesting, because even if we reject them, we know they are there, taking our measure. Maybe that’s why we dance around the Torah; because it stands, like a pillar, in the middle of all our messes and fears and dilemmas and happiness. And if we choose to, we can use it to see what we might be. Or become.

I mean, it’s possible, right? Why not?

(Photo: Ben Piven)

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Filed Under: Being Jewish

Tags: Jewish holidays, Laws of Moses, Simchat Torah, Torah