Simchat Torah
Oct. 22nd, 2008 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThe last of the flurry of fall holidays was this week. The Reform movement follows the Israeli calendar, so we had Simchat Torah on Tuesday along with Sh'mini Atzeret (cue chorus of "what's that?"). Simchat Torah means "rejoicing with the Torah"; we're supposed to sing and dance a lot, and this is when we read the last bit and immediately start again at the beginning.
We had a huge crowd on Monday night with lots of kids. There was a lot of singing; the hakafot (dancing/processing with the torah scrolls) didn't go on very long, but everyone who wanted a chance got one. My congregation mostly does not dance; a few of us started a circle dance up front but it didn't catch on. I have heard rumors of places that dance for hours, but I haven't experienced this myself. (For the dancing I took one of our scrolls of the prophets, which are much smaller than the torah scrolls, which meant I could hold it overhead and jingle its bells and stuff.)
I had asked my rabbi last week if I could chant B'reishit (the beginning of the torah), reprising my reading from Rosh Hashana. Just an hour earlier he'd discussed that with our associate rabbi and they'd decided the associate would do it, so I said "no problem" while my rabbi said "but we can change that" and we did this "no, after you" style dance until he told me to do it. The associate rabbi later assured me that this was not a problem for him and he commended me on my reading, so it all worked out. Our new education rabbi was there too (he was one of the checkers) and he seemed impressed; nifty.
Tuesday morning we had a much smaller crowd with a much higher average age. (I read again; it's the same torah portion.) This was one of the four days in a year that Yizkor (memorial service) is added in; I think this was the shortest I've seen at my congregation, coming in at about 15 minutes including remarks from the rabbi. It might have been a few minutes longer had our cantorial soloist not been home sick, but that's a fine length for this service in my opinion. When we do it on Yom Kippur it drags out for close to an hour, and our prayer book for that day is filled with readings that just don't connect for me. Mishkan T'filah is much better in that regard. (And my rabbi's remarks are always good and on-point.)
On Simchat Torah (well, technically, Sh'mini Atzeret) we begin praying for rain for the winter. So it rained. :-) Fortunately for me, it stopped by the time services ended; I hadn't brought an umbrella. (Mind, what we're really doing is praying for rain in Israel, but still...)
And now, back to a normal schedule. Next week should be a novel one at work; I'll be there every day.
BTW, this post from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xiphias does a nice job of explaining the arc of all these holidays.
We had a huge crowd on Monday night with lots of kids. There was a lot of singing; the hakafot (dancing/processing with the torah scrolls) didn't go on very long, but everyone who wanted a chance got one. My congregation mostly does not dance; a few of us started a circle dance up front but it didn't catch on. I have heard rumors of places that dance for hours, but I haven't experienced this myself. (For the dancing I took one of our scrolls of the prophets, which are much smaller than the torah scrolls, which meant I could hold it overhead and jingle its bells and stuff.)
I had asked my rabbi last week if I could chant B'reishit (the beginning of the torah), reprising my reading from Rosh Hashana. Just an hour earlier he'd discussed that with our associate rabbi and they'd decided the associate would do it, so I said "no problem" while my rabbi said "but we can change that" and we did this "no, after you" style dance until he told me to do it. The associate rabbi later assured me that this was not a problem for him and he commended me on my reading, so it all worked out. Our new education rabbi was there too (he was one of the checkers) and he seemed impressed; nifty.
Tuesday morning we had a much smaller crowd with a much higher average age. (I read again; it's the same torah portion.) This was one of the four days in a year that Yizkor (memorial service) is added in; I think this was the shortest I've seen at my congregation, coming in at about 15 minutes including remarks from the rabbi. It might have been a few minutes longer had our cantorial soloist not been home sick, but that's a fine length for this service in my opinion. When we do it on Yom Kippur it drags out for close to an hour, and our prayer book for that day is filled with readings that just don't connect for me. Mishkan T'filah is much better in that regard. (And my rabbi's remarks are always good and on-point.)
On Simchat Torah (well, technically, Sh'mini Atzeret) we begin praying for rain for the winter. So it rained. :-) Fortunately for me, it stopped by the time services ended; I hadn't brought an umbrella. (Mind, what we're really doing is praying for rain in Israel, but still...)
And now, back to a normal schedule. Next week should be a novel one at work; I'll be there every day.
BTW, this post from
xiphias does a nice job of explaining the arc of all these holidays.