cellio | Simchat Torah, Shabbat

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Simchat Torah, Shabbat

Simchat Torah was fun this year. We had the debut of our new synagogue band, which sounded pretty good. I'm looking forward to hearing more of them. We had a lot of people for the evening service -- more than I'm used to for a weeknight holiday -- including a bunch of kids.

(Aside for my non-Jewish readers: a hakafah (plural: hakafot) is a procession carrying the sefer torah, or torah scroll. On Simchat Torah we take out all the sifrei torah and do seven hakafot; the theory is that people might even dance rather than just walking. It's a festive time, and everyone who wants to is supposed to get the opportunity to carry a sefer torah. For many people, this is the only time they'll get that close to one.)

I'm not sure what the norm is for the hakafot. At my "backup" synagogue they just invite people to come up and make sure everyone gets a turn during one of the seven times around. At my synagogue, they call people up by group, where "group" means something like "grandparents" or "people who've been members here for more than 20 years" or "native Pittsburghers", with the final one being a catch-all for anyone who didn't get to go.

You see the problem, I'm sure. The groups are non-exclusive, and people who don't match any of the stated descriptions feel like also-rans. This is, in fact, why I stopped going to my synagogue for Simchat Torah for a few years; I was sick of the family-centric divisons in place at the time that did not account for singles and people without kids. They've gotten better about that, at least (it's not all about families), but it's still awfully family-centric. This time, the first three were "grandparents", "parents", and "women", and one single man standing near me was visibly disappointed to see some people on their third go-round before he'd had one. (That's a separate issue: some of our people don't seem to have the clue that once they've had a chance they should sit out until others have had one.) So for next year, I'm going to suggest to my rabbi that the first two be mutually-exclusive groups -- it really doesn't matter what they are -- and then they can go from there.

Turnout for the morning service was much smaller, but the service was still fun and the lower turnout ensured that everyone got one or two hakafot. The rabbis and cantorial soloist seemed to be having fun, which is good -- sometimes when you're busy running something you don't get to actually enjoy it. Seeing our associate rabbi dancing down the aisle while holding a (lightweight) torah scroll vertically above his head clued me in that he was having a good time. :-)

On the way home I ran into a couple people I know who were just walking out of New Light, a Conservative synagogue a block from my home. That congregation does two days of yom tov, so they had had Sh'mini Atzeret but not Simchat Torah (yet). I had a mostly-interesting, sometimes-frustrating conversation with them. (The frustration came from the fact that one of them was asking me questions about Reform, the other acknowledged that I "know a lot" and am "a scholar", but said other person wouldn't stop interrupting me when I tried to answer the first one's questions. Oh well.)

Thursday evening was our regular weekday minyan (it doesn't meet every day). Turnout has been very low lately, and often it's just me and the rabbi. This week there were two other people there. The rabbi asked us for input on this service -- should we keep doing it as-is, be more aggressive in getting people to come, or give up? I think we're going to try more gentle promotion and give it another year to see what happens, but this will probably be on the agenda of the next worship meeting.

Friday night a (curious gentile) friend went with me to services. I felt bad that, while much of the congregational Hebrew is transliterated, most of it is sung -- so she was facing not just linguistic barriers but also melodic ones. She seemed to be making a valiant effort, though, and she told me later that she found it fulfilling, so I'm glad I was able to help. I suggested that she try our morning service sometime too.

This week was B'reishit, the first portion of the torah. We are now reading the third aliya (of the traditional seven), so we got the part about the incident in the garden. My rabbi made a very good point in his sermon: this is not a story about good and evil, but about knowledge and mortality. So long as Adam and Chava were ignorant, they could live forever in the garden -- but if they were to eat from both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, they would become like God -- immortal and all-knowing. So when they chose knowledge they had to give up immortality. Would any of us make a different choice? I know I wouldn't.

I guess this is why I don't really connect with the idea of original sin. Eating from the tree of knowledge was a necessary transition in human history, just as going into slavery in Egypt was a necessary transition for the Jewish people. It's not good or bad; it just is. Yes, they disobeyed a direct order from God, but the fact that they had that choice is significant. They were designed to be thinking beings, not automata, from the start -- and to think meaningfully, you need knowledge. (I should stress that this paragraph is purely me talking, and I don't know if my rabbi would agree with what I'm saying.)

This morning's service went well, except for the part where I misread the notation in the chumash and wound the scroll to the wrong spot. Not only that, but the portion begins in the middle of a long paragraph, so the beginning is hard to find. So we spent several minutes during the service trying to find the right spot. Oops. That's embarrassing.

Next week after morning services I'm going to give a short class on leading the torah service. This will allow more people, including those who don't actually want to read torah, to participate in the service. I have a good handout that I got this summer in the Sh'liach K'hilah program, so rather than roll my own I'm going to use that (with permission). It's an annotated copy of the service and includes transliteration for all the Hebrew, so people will be able to take that home and practice.

Last night we got some bad news. The sister of one of our teachers, and sister-in-law of our bar-mitzvah tutor (who reads torah at Tree of Life on weekdays, so I see him a lot), was killed in one of the bombings in Egypt. She was 27. Baruch dayan emet, and if I believed in hell I'd pray for all the bastards who attack innocent civilians to rot in it.

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You can get my theory on The Apple later, if you want it, but for now,

Eating from the tree of knowledge was a necessary transition in human history, just as going into slavery in Egypt was a necessary transition for the Jewish people.

Something being necessary doesn't make it not evil. As for Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery, there is no way that they could have known that it would be necessary in order to save them from the famine or to set up the Hebrews to receive the Torah. They only knew that their brother had favor with their father, was acting arrogant, and wanted him out of the way. They were not performing an unpleasant but necessary task, they were trying to murder him for selfish reasons, and would have done so directly except for Reuben. I'm finding it rather hard to call premeditated kidnapping a good, or even a neutral act.

The analogy to The Apple is similar--they didn't know that it was necessary, only that it was evil.

Aside for my non-Jewish readers: a kahafah (plural: hakafot)

Minor nitpick: I think you meant to write "Hakafah" rather than "kahafah" above. Darn dyslexia!

As far as the hakafot go, I've seen a bunch of different customs for them. At the places that I've been going to the past few years on Simchat Torah (basically Conservative ones in NYC: JTS, Ansche Chesed, Shaare Zedek, B'nei Jeshurun (aka BJ)) the custom is more or less this:
1. A "Hakafah" is announced. Often they start specific, then get general, depending upon how many people come up for one: e.g. "People who went to Israel last year. People who are going to Israel next year. People who are thinking about going to Israel next year..."
2. From among those "getting" the hakafah, a person or people reads the hebrew, which is basically of the formula

Pure and upright, save us. Gracious to the needy, cause us to prosper. Good and benevolent, answer us when we call.

(the italics change from hakafah to hakafah, and everyone joins in on the non-italic bits.) Others "getting" the hakafah hold a Torah scroll, or at least stand near one.
3. The ones carrying the Torah scrolls start walking around, but singing and dancing quickly starts up, often with people circling around the Torah scrolls. When people get tired of holding a Torah (some of 'em are heavy), they pass it on to someone else; since it lasts several hours all told, and there are lots of torahs involved, in practice this means that anyone who wants to carry a Torah gets a chance at some point during the dancing, if not for the beginning of a hakafah.

Depending upon the architecture, the hakafot aren't even necessarily laps around the synegogue; for example, one of the JTS services takes place in an auditorium, but the dancing is in the lobby adjacent; pre 2001, BJ and other synagogues blocked off an avenue in NY and literally danced in the street.

As far as eating from the tree... I think it was necessary. Something that I pointed out to Joy this year, and probably also last year, is this: in the text, God tells Adam not to eat of the tree of KoGaE, or he'll die. Eve is not, at this point, alive. Later, the serpent (who knows better) asks Eve if it's true God said not to eat from any tree in the garden; she responds they're not to eat or touch the tree of KoGaE or she'll die. This is the first example of "putting a fence around the Torah" (taking a commandment and making it stricter). There's a midrash that the serpent disproves the latter statement by crawling up the tree and showing that its touch doesn't kill, so Eve eats. (In fact, eating the tree doesn't kill Adam and Eve, either, or at least not immediately. I guess it's not as catchy to say "Eat not of the tree of knowledge of good and evil lest you die in 930 years!")

I agree that eating the fruit (apple or no; figs seem likely, since fig leaves were handy afterward. And frankly, I love apples, but they don't seem nearly... seductive enough. Not like, say, a nice ripe peach...) was necessary for human history as we know it. There are midrashim that eating the fruit happened before Shabbat, and that had there been a whole Shabbat completing Creation before the eating, things might have been different. No idea how, but the idea intrigues me, nevertheless.

Simchat Torah: I was wondering about your Torah reading. The shuls I go to have our only night-time Torah reading on Simchat Torah night... so does your shul do some kind of reading in the morning? (Just emphasizing the Torah aspect of the day.)

Baruch Dayan Emet. I hope that the situation changes to one where it is unacceptable (on both sides) to kill random people, for whatever reason.

The way Simchas Torah usually done at the shuls I've attended (all O., FWIW) is through auctions. The honors -- leading each individual hakafah and maybe some other stuff, I don't quite know what all -- are auctioned off. It's usually a humorous and spirited exchange; nevertheless, I'd rather skip it and get right to the wild singing and dancing, which I just love watching. I got there right as the auctions began on Friday morning, so I saw people "buying" (quotation marks since this is on yontif) honors for friends, for family members, for honored members of the congregation, for entire groups of people, etc. So these were the people who were carrying the scrolls and doing the chanting as each hakafah began, but the scrolls got handed around all over the place as things progressed. Also, the hakafos didn't have leaders for very long -- once the dancing started, it became more of a free-for-all, with some running, some walking, some dancing, some just jumping in place, some hanging around the bimah in order to beat out a rhythm, kids winding through the whole mess fearlessly ... I didn't stick around long enough this year to see how the aliyos were done, but I used to get a chuckle at my shul in Dallas b/c they would call up the men in random silly groups, like so: anybody with an American flag hanging in front of his house, come get an aliyah; anybody with a car fewer than 5 years old, come get an aliyah ... and so on, till everyone had their turn. Also, they'd usually set up at least 3 leyning "stations" to speed the process.

I agree that necessary acts can still be evil, as with Yosef.

Can someone who hasn't eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil perform an evil act? Or does evil require intention?

I don't think Adam and Chava were capable of evil at the time.

Typo: oops, thanks. Fixed now.

Ah, I see a difference in the hakafot. At our congregation, the person who starts out carrying the scroll carries it for the entire lap, and then hands it to someone else when the next hakafah starts. But we don't go on for hours, so there's not enough time for people to get tired of carrying one. Maybe for next year we can get some real dancing going in the lobby or something and then hand-offs would naturally occur.

First fence around the torah: I've noticed the same thing. It's an obvious jumping-off point for sermons about the dangers of adding to the torah, but I don't think I've heard one yet. I didn't know about the midrash with the snake touching the tree; thanks.

I've also heard pomegranates as candidates for the fruit.

I was wondering about your Torah reading.

We had readings both evening and morning. In both cases, people were called up for group aliyot. (They did it by birth-month to make sure everyone was included.) Do traditional congregations not read on Simchat Torah morning?

We do read in the morning, as usual; I was just thinking that we also have the night reading added on, and didn't know if you added a morning reading on to your more usual evening reading.

(The evening reading is short, just three quick aliyot; the morning ones include an aliyah for everyone, plus chatan Torah and chatan Breishit.)

I really dislike the auctions; I've been lucky enough to not run into them much. Except the years I was in Israel, and the yeshivah auctioned things off to the highest bidder... in extra pages of Gemarah or chapters of Mishna learned, depending on the level of the student. All learning to be done by Channukah, I think.

Ah, got it.

The Reform movement (mostly) reads at night on Shabbat, because (historically) that's when people come. We also read Shabbat morning, though. I don't know what the usual practice is, but in our synagogue we do not read at night for holidays (just in the morning), except of course for Simchat Torah when reading at night is the norm. We're also starting to not read one Friday a month when we have our "mostly musical shabbat". I think my rabbi is trying to gradually move things more toward what kabalat shabbat is supposed to be, at lease for those services. I approve.

We had "big" readings (that is, with everyone getting aliyot) both evening and morning.

First of all, if I haven't already said so, happy birthday ...

The auctions are something that make me glad not to be in the men's section, quite frankly (though women bid here as well). I know it's for a good cause, I know it's done in a way that technically doesn't violate yontif, etc etc etc -- I just wish it could be done before yontif and in a more private way, so that it doesn't become a show (and so that it doesn't delay the agenda for the day, which is -- dancing!).

>> don't think Adam and Chava were capable of evil at the time.

The way I understand it -- and I'm pretty sure this is in the midrash -- is that they were capable of evil (read: disobedience to G-d's instructions), but it was for them an intellectual thing, not tied up with irrational physical urges. Kind of like how -- well, imagine you're a person who has non-functional taste buds and no physical reaction to chocolate or other sweet fattening things (blood sugar fluctuations and other chemical changes). For you, the question of whether to gorge yourself repeatedly on this kind of food and risk heartburn/bloating/weight gain/clogged arteries/general bad health is kinda abstract and theoretical. I mean, you *could*, but since it has no sensual appeal, why bother? Before eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, consideration of whether to do bad was kind of the same way for Adam and Eve -- still within the realm of possibility but nevertheless abstract and theoretical, because it was *outside* of them. Eating the fruit bound the possibility of doing bad into their physical natures -- it put them in a position where their physical desires, not their intellectual musings, led them to consider the possibility of disobedience. I believe the midrash indicates that once Chava was taken in by the serpent and ate, one of Adam's considerations for also eating was that he believed it would be more of a tribute to G-d if he obeyed G-d's commands in spite of having strong physical desires that would lead him in other directions. The problem was that Adam overestimated himself somewhat and didn't consider that the physical desires would be strong enough that there was no guarantee that he could always hold out against them ... that's what I remember off the top of my head for now.

Thank you :-)

I'm with you about the auctions; it just doesn't feel yontifdik in the right way for me. I mean, isn't there some other way to raise money for the shul...?

That fits with my own interpretation of that story -- that they were not capable of evil, or of "sin", until they had eaten from the tree of knowlege of good and evil.

But instead of thinking of orignal sin as being a sin that tainted the rest of us, I think of it as "the origin of sin"; that transition in which humanity grew into being a moral species, after which sin existed because it was possible for us to know better. So you and I agree on that historical-transition perspective even if we use different phrasing.

As for the rest, well I've long maintained that "in His image" refers to our having free will, so it looks like we agree on the importance of intelligence and free will.

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