We Will Dance Again
As we approach the end of our Chagim season, I think about the meaningful time we have spent in shul, the quality time we’ve enjoyed with family and friends, the festive meals, and the unique feeling of this time of year.
Still upcoming is a favorite day of the year for many: Simchas Torah.
We take the Sefer Torah, the text we live our lives by, and instead of sitting down to study it, we hold it in our arms and dance.
Why?
If Torah is about learning, shouldn’t the greatest celebration of Torah be a dedicated day of learning?
We know the Torah isn’t only about learning. It’s about living.
Learning engages our minds. Dancing engages our whole selves. Dance also gives us something we all need. We need to feel connected, energized, and alive. Movement, music, and connection can even help regulate stress and lift our mood.
In Koheles, Shlomo HaMelech tells us:
“עֵת לִבְכּוֹת וְעֵת לִשְׂחוֹק עֵת סְפֹד וְעֵת רְקוֹד”
There is a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.
We dance at weddings. We dance on Simchas Torah. We dance at moments when our emotions are bigger than words.
And since October 7th, which fell on Simchas Torah, dancing has taken on an even deeper meaning.
When I visited Israel, I had the privilege of hearing Rabbi Doron Perez speak about this from a deeply personal perspective. He shared how, just days after October 7th, his son was getting married while his other son was missing and they didn’t know if he was alive.
He spoke about realizing that mourning and dancing don’t always have to happen at separate times. Sometimes they happen at the same time.
That idea has stayed with me.
So many survivors of the Nova festival have said some version of:
“We will dance again.”
Not because they have forgotten what happened or because the pain is gone or because they will ever be the same again
But because they are choosing to keep living.
I would expect the language, “there’s a time to mourn and a time to dance,” to be slightly different, since the counter to mourning can be joy or celebration. However, based on Rabbi Perez’s thought, the phrasing seems very fitting for Simchas Torah, post Oct 7th. Yes, sometimes we can mourn and dance at the same time.
And perhaps that’s part of what we all do on Simchas Torah.
After a year of learning through the parshiyos in the Torah, we take the Torah into our arms, and dance.
We bring everything with us. The love of learning, the questions, the struggles, the joy, the exhaustion, the direction and everything that comes along with living a Torah lifestyle.
We dance not because everything is perfect, but because we choose to keep learning and living the beauty of a Torah life.
As we say goodbye to the Chagim and move into the next chapter of the year.
There might be a time to mourn.
And there will hopefully be many times to dance.
And sometimes, the mourning and dancing overlap and we choose to keep dancing.
Reader’s Reflection
Do you need to be the one actually holding the Torah to feel the Simcha? If you prefer to watch can you still enjoy the benefits of Simchas Torah? Are there other examples of times you feel great joy as a spectator and not an active participant?