A Time for Dancing

Simchat Torah was a creation of the diaspora; it shouldn’t be altered because of events in Israel

We are seeing many calls this year to do Simchat Torah differently. In the light of the October 7^th attacks, which took place last year on Simchat Torah, there are suggestions that our joy should be tempered with sadness - that the traditional dancing of the festival should be replaced or changed to make it more suitable for mourning. I understand this sentiment. I remember seeing the news on my phone on the way to synagogue last year. At that point we didn't know the extent of what had happened and so my community decided to carry on as normal which I felt was the right decision. At that point the attack hadn't yet been framed as ‘October 7^th’, this quasi-mythical event which has been repeatedly framed as the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. So, this year, particularly in Israel, there have been many calls for changes in ritual such as more morning prayers and conducting some of the hakafot silently instead of joyfully.

For me what's important is the kavannah, the intention of these changes. If the changes in ritual are in memory of all who have died in the past year in the war that began on October 7^th, be they Israeli, Palestinian or Lebanese, then I don’t object. But if, as seems predominantly to be the case, they are designed purely to mourn the Israelis who were killed on the 7^th of October or the hostages or soldiers who have died since then I don't think it's acceptable. Because it is not enough to mourn the Jews and Israelis that have died - we must also mourn the 10s of thousands of Palestinians and now Lebanese people killed in the war that's now lasted just over a year. There's something almost obscene about only mourning our dead and not mourning the deaths that ‘we’ have actually caused. This is of course is the story that many Jews don't accept, the story that says we have not only lost people this year, but we have taken lives as well, some 42,000 of them, and probably many more. It is not just a case of a Palestinian massacre of Israelis it is also a case of an Israeli massacre of Palestinians, one which may well have reached the threshold of genocide. Surely we cannot mark one of these ritually, and not the other?

All this is made more complex by the history of the festival in question. Because originally this festival is Shemini Atzeret - the last day of Sukkot and the end of the Yamim Noraim season. Shemini Atzeret, alongside Hoshanah Rabbah which precedes it, offers the last opportunity for repentance, teshuva, before the season finally closes. Traditionally diaspora Jews, or as I like to call them, Jews, celebrate Shemini Atzeret for two days in common with all the Chaggim. Sometime around a thousand years ago, diaspora Jews in northern Europe created a new ritual to differentiate the second day of Shemini Atzeret called Simkhes Toyreh, or Simchat Torah. There was already the practice of ending the reading of the book of D’varim (Deuteronomy) on Shemini Atzeret but to this was added in the 13^th Century beginning again with Bereishit, the customs of celebrating with the Torah, of seven hakafot, of a special Haftarah, basically turning the day into a Torah party. So Simchat Torah is a (relatively) modern festival, one that was created in the diaspora to fill a two-day yontef with relatively few rituals associated with it. It is diasporist in content as well as form – we end Deuteronomy at the banks of the Jordan, and then jump back to the creation story of Genesis. In our Torah we are eternally journeying through the wilderness and never reach the land of Israel. All in all, while Simchat Torah is really just a minhag of Shemini Atzeret, it makes for a fun, child-friendly festival which I much enjoyed growing up, although the flags-with-apples-on-top which we used to wave around the shul were way too closely associated with the JNF for comfort.

There has been a longstanding custom to observe only one day chaggim (except Rosh Hashanah) in Eretz Yisrael (which is of course distinct from Medinat Yisrael). When the Reform movement was founded, in 19^th century Germany, the second day of festivals was abolished, and ever since Progressive synagogues have only observed one day, in accordance with traditional Jews in the land of Israel. This means that Shemini Atzeret, with its customs of T’filat Geshem (the prayer for rain) and Yizkor (memorial service) and Simchat Torah are forced to coexist in one rather packed festival day.

I don’t see why we should give up, or tone down our festivals based on what happens in Israel, especially when those festivals were specifically creations of the diaspora. So much of diaspora Judaism, or as I like to call it, Judaism, has been ruined by Zionism – our festivals forced into a constrained prism of remembering our dead and celebrating the state. This is particularly true of Channukah and Purim – which have been crushed by the ‘they tried to kill us let’s eat’ framing (rather than being heard at Sinai this was a joke by a US Jewish comedian in the 1950s). I don’t want the same to happen to Simchat Torah. While I don’t deny anyone the right to mourn the Israelis killed on October 7^th or after, this was an Israeli event, not a Jewish one. Despite all the hasbara claims, the victims were killed or taken hostage because they were Israelis, not because they were Jews. If Israeli Jews want to turn Simchat Torah into a wake, then that is their choice. We diaspora Jews have the right to do otherwise. We demand our independence.

Traditional Jews in the diaspora have an advantage in this case. Because while the Hamas attack occurred on Simchat Torah in Israel, it took place on the morning of Shemini Atzeret according to the calendar of traditional diaspora Jews. So Orthodox and Masorti Jews in the diaspora can mark Shemini Atzeret in the traditional way, including a Yizkor service, and dwell as much as they want to on mourning (hopefully for all who have died in the last year). Then. on the next day, which is not the anniversary of the massacre, they can observe Simchat Torah with all its traditional joy and pageantry (though if we could leave the Israeli flags at home I’d be much obliged). It would be good for Progressive communities to adopt this practice too – to reinstate the second day of Yomtov, if only for Shemini Atzeret. We could even create a diasporist logic for doing so – we have the privilege to live in diaspora, where we are not collectively oppressing anyone else, therefore we should get an extra day off work and a full day to celebrate the Torah. While I can’t see this idea taking off in Israel, there is the tradition of Second Hakafot, a second set of Torah dances done in the evening after Israel-time Simchat Torah, for which one reason is unity with traditional diaspora Jews who are just beginning to celebrate Simchat Torah at that time. A custom in which Israeli Jews do something different to connect to the Jewish diaspora is one worth keeping and building on.

I appreciate that there is a larger question – how do those of us who have become convinced Israel is committing a genocide in the name of defending the Jewish people continue to celebrate Judaism and engage in Jewish life? Particularly when so much of the mainstream Jewish world is ignoring that genocide or even justifying aspects of it. Hopefully pioneering Anti-Zionist or pro-ceasefire communities, like Tzedek Chicago are right now creating rituals that both bring attention to the genocide while maintaining the best of Jewish tradition. Most of us aren’t lucky enough to have such communities on our doorstep. So we are going to have to engage with the mainstream Jewish world, and specifically we will need to fight to take Judaism back. It is not a religion, or a culture that is purely about Jewish survival and mourning. It is a rich tradition, covering all aspects of human existence, ultimately concerned with how we ought to best live. The dancing of Simchat Torah cannot be compared with the dancing of the Nova festival to create the trite slogan – We Will Dance Again. Rather it is dancing with Torah, with mythology, with the life cycle, with existence, with the joy of being. There will always be terrible things that befall us and terrible things that we do to others. Whatever may occur, the yearly cycle of festivals should go on; a cycle which provides for opportunities to mark whatever occurs without ripping up the entire tradition. Our calendar is rich and capacious; it provides a time for mourning, but also a time for dancing.