Never Too Old for Simhat Torah

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameah!

Whenever we jokingly speak about "three-day-a-year-Jews," we are typically speaking about those Jews who only attend Rosh Hashanah's two days and Yom Kippur. But if I could re-define the three days that I wish every Jew would be in synagogue, one of them would have to be Simhat Torah.

Yes, I love the High Holy Days, but if all we take with us into the new year is the solemnity and sobriety of the Days of Awe, then we cheat ourselves out of enjoying a very different kind of spectacle, that of seeing hundreds and hundreds of Jews filling the aisles, dancing with the Torah scrolls and celebrating the joy of being Jewish.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of me sitting on my Dad's shoulders as he carried me around the Sanctuary of Beth Yeshurun on Simhat Torah. I must have been quite young, yet I can picture that scene as if it was yesterday. In my mind, I see throngs of happy people genuinely enjoying themselves, singing, dancing and thanking God for the gift of Torah.

But something has happened to Simhat Torah that has left me saddened, and that is the way this beautiful holiday has somehow become, in many people's minds, a children's holiday. Middle school kids complain they've outgrown it; adults too often come only if they have very young children to bring with them.

Yet throughout history, what made Simhat Torah so exhilarating was the way it turned adults into kids, ridding adults of the solemnity and sobriety of the just-ended High Holy Days and energizing these same parents and grandparents with a religious zeal their children often didn't see the rest of the year!

Yes, to me, we need a day like Simhat Torah to remind us that celebrating life is a vital part of Judaism. And nothing we do can demonstrate our embrace of life more than when we take a Torah in our arms on Simhat Torah. For that, you can never be too old.

Shabbat Shalom and Hag Sameah!

Rabbi Rosen