Sukkot-Simchat Torah
Dear Friend,
I celebrated my first Simchat Torah at the age of 34 in a small synagogue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. I had been invited to “see what it was like,” more as an observer than as a participant—or so I thought. I was struggling to keep up with the flow of the services, trying to follow the Hebrew I had rarely read since my bar mitzvah, watching others and attempting to vicariously share their experiences, but failing to do so.
Then, in the midst of the dancing, someone pushed a large and very heavy Torah scroll into my arms, and within a few moments I experienced a complete, transcendent connectedness that I had never known before. Eyes closed, the soft mantle of the Torah pressed against my cheek, I found myself first holding, then hugging, then embracing the Torah with my entire being. Suddenly the world felt right, and I danced, truly for the first time in my life, completely at one with everything and everyone around me.
Every year since then, I wait for those precious moments on Simchat Torah when I once again can experience absolutely nothing else but the pure joy of being Jewish.
May we all be blessed to experience a pure, holy joy this Simchat Torah, that we can carry with us and share with others every day of the year.
Yaakov Ort,
on behalf of the Chabad.org Editorial Team
A photo essay including a boat sukkah and a sukkah in Saddam Hussein’s palace!
The tree gives no fruit and the leaves give off no fragrance. Yet it is precisely in that “blandness” of being that we recognize the presence of something beyond. The willow’s minimalism is indicative of the inner point of the Jewish soul which is indivisible and thus empty of discernable distinctive qualities…
These days - among the happiest on the Jewish calendar - are fast approaching. Here is everything you need to know to celebrate in style.
Finally, in a dramatic denouement, Levi Yitzchak placed the tallit firmly back in its place and announced: “If you’re a chassid and a scholar, then you lead the prayers!” and stalked back to his seat near the side wall of the synagogue . . .
The media has capitalized on the post–Fruit of Knowledge schism in a brilliant way. If the body is so distracting, then do everything you can to distract! Call attention to yourself. Be alluring. That is the key to success.
Metaphorically, a man brings the raw and coarse materials home. The woman has the power to transform those materials into a finished product, thereby elevating and refining the man’s contribution.
The creation of darkness and light, the sundering of matter from spirit, the first human, the first sleep, the first marriage, the first sin, the first suit of clothes, the first childbirth, the first war . . . If it's going to happen in the story of man, there’s a precedent in the first Parshah of the book of Genesis.
G‑d is there, always, and He hears your pain. But G‑d also put us in this world craving the company, advice, sympathy and approval of other human beings. Bottling emotions, suffocating them, is unnatural. So, don’t do it. Please.
Of course it’s important for children to have confidence and self-esteem, but there’s a rub: what if the parent lacks it? What if the parent is insecure?
In the Beilis trial of 1913 false accusations of ritual murder were leveled against the entire corpus of Torah teaching, the Jewish people generally, and the chassidic movement specifically.
A Sukkot journey—from memories of secrecy as a child in Morocco to revelry in current-day Montreal, where Rabbi Mendel Raskin hosts hundreds of guests in a giant sukkah in his backyard, and thousands more at Simchat Beit HaShoevah festivities in a park.
There were zero leftovers at the first-ever kosher dinner served at the student dining hall at the University of Kansas.
In 2009, 16-year-old Levi Duchman had a zany idea: Why not build a mobile sukkah—one pulled by a bike? It was a concept that made sense to the teenager, and today, pedi-sukkahs spin their wheels in dozens of cities in four different countries.
The small fishing village and artists' colony at Playa del Carmen Mexico, is a popular spot for Israeli backpackers. More than 150 a day are trudging to Chabad, where they're enjoying a meat and chicken meal for only 30 pesos, or about $2.25.
Meat and rice, rolled up in cabbage and cooked in a decadent sauce - a Simchat Torah classic. With step-by-step photo instructions.
Ellis shared with us that he hasn’t spoken Yiddish with anyone in over forty years . . .
He is also involved in a variety of humanitarian causes, including arranging the adoption of Cambodian children from impoverished homes.
Some people think there is no conflict between their work and their time for study, meditation and prayer.
But, on the contrary, they complement one another:
Start your day by connecting it to Torah—the day shines and all its parts work in synchronicity.
Work honestly, carrying the morning’s inspiration in your heart—a...
