Soon we will be sitting down in our succa for the final meal there this year. We will be having our traditional meal of chicken soup with kreplach (sometimes known as Jewish won tons). Towards evening I'll light my candles and then we"ll begin a marathon of a holiday. In the evening there will be services which include seven rounds of dancing with the Torah (hakafot - literally 'going arounds'). We eat dinner much later than usual. In the morning we have even more dancing hakafot, all the men are called up to bless the Torah, the children get a special blessing under a huge talit, we finish the reading cycle of the Torah portions and immediately begin the new cycle, we say hallel, yizkor (memorial prayers for the dead) and tefilat geshem (prayer for rain in Israel). Outside of Israel all this is divided into two days. But here it all comes together.
I wrote about how my community manages all this in my Simchat Tora Review. Last year I shared a dvar Torah appropriate for Simchat Torah at Looking forward to Simchat Torah!
Hadassah at In The Pink asks if Simchat Torah is just for men. I certainly don't think so!.
2 comments:
Sounds totally nuts! I've often wondered how Israelis manage. Then again, at least you don't have SIX festive meals to consume over the next 3 days... blah. Enjoy!
Jewish Holidays suit Israeli weather. It's not the same any place else.
Shabbat Shalom
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