Welcome to the new year, and to our last High Holiday at that! Speedy Shabbat, for our youngest congregants and families, is tonight at 5:30pm. A brief Consecration for Temple Beth David’s newest Religious School students will be included. Then at 6:30pm, our main Shabbat service features the unrolling of the Torah, dancing and some traditional hakafot – festive processions around the Sanctuary with the Torah scroll.
This Shabbat is unique in that it marks our return to Bereishit and the yearly rhythm of Torah readings. In fact, we will be reading the last few lines of Torah for all to hear tonight, followed (traditionally in the same breath!) by the very first verses. What that means is that the end of a significant part of the Israelites’ story ends with the death of Moses and the people’s continuation of their journey forward. Moving back to the beginning evokes our world before anything was formed. Before day and night, sky and water, darkness and light.
All these pieces of our story will be revealed tonight. In the words of Rabbi David Wolpe: “This year on Simchat Torah, as we hold aloft the Torah, we can make the words come alive again. Readers are those who not only go through the text but allow the text to move through them. Holding aloft the Torah we understand the mission to see its words realized in our lives and in our world.”
May Simchat Torah, with its endings and beginnings, its movement and buoyancy, help us commit to 5785 as a year of Torah as a wellspring of new insights and discoveries all their own, as each of us finds new ways of connecting with our rich and wondrous tradition.
Shabbat Shalom, and Moadim L’simcha
And looking forward to seeing you tonight!
Rabbi Gutterman
