Simchat Torah
Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah
...On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the Festival of Sukkot, seven days for the L-RD... on the eighth day, there shall be a holy convocation for you.
-Leviticus 23:34
It is that time of year again... the Jewish New Year has begun, The High Holy days are coming to an end and so has the reading of the yearly reading of the Torah. It is time to go from the end back to the beginning again! During this celebration we roll the Torah Scroll from the end of Deuteronomy back to Genesis. There is a special ceremony of celebration the Torah. What about this are we celebrating? The Torah as the very Words of God's heart to us. God sent Yeshua, Jesus to us to bring us to the Father. Yeshua is the Word of God as we are told in John 1:1-4
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
This celebration is called Simchat Torah or Simḥath Torah (also Simkhes Toreh, Hebrew: שִׂמְחַת תורָה, lit., "Rejoicing with/of the Torah,") is a celebration marking the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. Simchat Torah is a component of the Biblical Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret ("Eighth Day of Assembly"), which follows immediately after the festival of Sukkot in the month of Tishrei (mid-September to early October on the Gregorian calendar).
The main celebration of Simchat Torah takes place in the synagogue during evening and morning services. In many Orthodox and Conservative congregations, this is the only time of year on which the Torah scrolls are taken out of the ark and read at night. In the morning, the last parashah of Deuteronomy and the first parashah of Genesis are read in the synagogue. On each occasion, when the ark is opened, all the worshippers leave their seats to dance and sing with all the Torah scrolls in a joyous celebration that often lasts for several hours and more.
The morning service is also uniquely characterized by the calling up of each male member (in some Orthodox and the majority of non-Orthodox congregations, male and female members) of the congregation for an aliyah which means "going up", as well as a special aliyah for all the children in attendance.
The name Simchat Torah was not used until a relatively late time. In the Talmud (Meg. 31b) it is called Shemini Atzeret. The Code of Jewish Law states the custom of Simchat Torah is ancient.
The Darchei Moshe (OC 669:3) cites a responsum from R' Joseph Colon (#26) who found a geonic responsum mentioning the custom of dancing on Simchat Torah, thus dating the current practice of dancing on Simchat Torah back to the geonic period. (This does not appear in our versions of the Maharik). Although there is generally a prohibition against dancing on the Sabbath and festivals, this was evidently relaxed for the sake of the honor of the Torah.
In the 9th century, some European Jewish communities assigned a special reading from the Prophets to be read on this day. In the 14th century, the reading of Genesis was added immediately upon the completion of Deuteronomy. In southern European countries it then became a general practice to remove all the Torah scrolls from the ark, and to sing a separate hymn for each scroll. In northern European countries, those who had finished the reading of Deuteronomy made donations to the synagogue, after which the wealthier members of the community would give a dinner for friends and acquaintances. By the end of the 15th century, it was a common though not universal practice for the children to tear down and burn the sukkahs on Simchat Torah (Maharil, cited in OC Darchei Moshe 669:3);
In the 16th century, the practice of taking out the scrolls and filing solemnly around the bimah - the Judgement Seat- where the Torah is laid to read from- on the night of the 23nd of Tishri became customary; and on the same evening, after the procession, a number of passages from the Torah were read.
In the 17th century, Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner of Prague composed a poem about Simhat Torah.
In Poland it was the custom to sell to the members of the congregation, on the 23nd of Tishri, the privilege of executing various functions during the services on Shabbat and Jewish festivals; i.e., the synagogue used this occasion as a fund-raiser. People who made these donations were called up to the Torah and given a congregational blessing.
It became a custom for every male member of the congregation to read from the Torah, the passage Deut. 33:1-29 being repeated as many times as was necessary for this purpose. Today this practice is still followed in Orthodox synagogues; Conservative synagogues adapt this practice by also including women. One person is given the privilege of completing the reading of the Law with Deut. 34:1-12; he receives the name of Chatan Torah (bridegroom of the Torah). Our sages have taught, that a new beginning must immediately follow completion. So, after the Chatan Torah comes the member who recommences the reading of the Torah with Gen. 1. He is called the Chatan Bereshit (bridegroom of Genesis). Receiving the first aliyah of the Torah is propitious for success in all undertakings both spiritual as well as material. It is considered by some to be the most special Aliyah of the year.
What is Torah
The word "Torah" can mean different things in different contexts. In its most limited sense, "Torah" refers to the Five Books of Moses but the word "torah" can also be used to refer to the entire Jewish bible (the body of scripture known to non-Jews as the Old Testament and to Jews as the Tanakh or Written Torah), or in its broadest sense, to the whole body of Jewish law and teachings.
Written Torah - To Jews, there is no "Old Testament." The books that Christians call the New Testament are not part of Jewish scripture. The so-called Old Testament is known to Jews as Written Torah or the Tanakh.
This is a list of the books of Written Torah, in the order in which they appear in Jewish translations. The Hebrew names of the first five books are derived from the first few words of the book. The text of each book is more or less the same in Jewish translations as what you see in Christian bibles, although there are some occasional, slight differences in the numbering of verses and there are some significant differences in the translations.
TORAH (The Law):
Bereishith (In the beginning...) (Genesis)
Shemoth (The names...) (Exodus)
Vayiqra (And He called...) (Leviticus)
Bamidbar (In the wilderness...) (Numbers)
Devarim (The words...) (Deuteronomy)
You are not supposed to touch the parchment on these scrolls; some say because they are too holy; some say because the parchment, made from animal skins, is a source of ritual defilement; others say because your fingers' sweat has acids that will damage the parchment over time. Instead, you follow the text with a pointer, called a Yad which means "hand" in Hebrew, and the pointer usually is in the shape of a hand with a pointing index finger. The scrolls are kept covered with fabric, and often ornamented with silver crowns on the handles of the scrolls and a silver breastplate on the front. The scrolls are kept in a cabinet in the synagogue called an "ark," as in Ark of the Covenant, not as in Noah's Ark. The words are different and unrelated in Hebrew.
Torah Scroll Facts - A Torah Scroll is the holiest book within Judaism, made up of the five books of Moses. There are 304,805 letters in a Torah Scroll. We also find 613 commandments in the Torah. Even a single missing or misshapen letter invalidates the entire Sefer Torah. The entire Torah is written by hand, each letter is inscribed and individually formed with a quill and specially prepared ink. An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script).
The Torah Scroll must be written by a specially trained pious scribe called a sofer. It takes about a year to write an entire Torah Scroll. A sofer must know more than 4,000 Judaic laws before he begins writing a Torah Scroll. The Torah we use today in our synagogue is written exactly the same way the Torah was written the very first time by Moses 3,300 years ago.
The Torah is made of many sheets of parchment comprising usually between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment-cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications. The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. Each page has 42 lines. Our Torah at Beth Yeshua has 26 sheets altogether.
Most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight with many different sizes in between.
No comments:
Post a Comment