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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

31 for 21: Simchat Torah

I totally missed blogging about Simchat Torah yesterday.  This is the final holiday in the busy month of beginnings -- Tishrei.

We start with a new year.
Then we turn over a new leaf when we atone for our sins on Yom Kippur.
We spend 7 days in the sparse structure of the Sukkah for Sukkot.
And on Simchat Torah we do the Great Rewind -- we unroll the entire parchment scroll of Torah, and roll it back up to the Beginning -- a new start to reading the Pentateuch. "In the beginning, when G*d created the heavens and the earth...."

It is noted that the last letter of the Torah is "Lamed".
The first letter of the Torah is "Bet".
Together, they spell "Lev" = "Heart".
On Simchat Torah we dance with the newly-rewound scrolls with joyous abandon, pouring our hearts into the words that have sustained our people for millenia.

In the Beginning.

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