Dance Like the Whole World Is Watching!

It is no accident that the enemies of truth and peace struck on Simchas Torah last year. They believed that they could rob us of our SIMCHA and make us question our TORAH. The depravity of their actions were intended to force us to ask ourselves, if God is King, how could He allow such things to happen on any day, let alone such a holy day?

It has been a dark and difficult year, but we have not abandoned Torah or its Author for thousands of years. We have been attacked and butchered countless times throughout the ages, but we have somehow managed to maintain our simcha and to dance despite it all. On Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah this year, we will once again give the Torah legs and circle with it around our sacred spaces.

Why do Jews dance in circles? Because we know that life in this world is cyclical – we experience triumph and we suffer defeat; we wax again, and then we wain again, like the moon and its cyclic phases by which we count time and to which we are compared. At times the light gives way to darkness, but we do not despair, we disport. We continue to promenade around the circle because we know that not only will it be bright again, but that there is no greater light than the blinding gleam that follows the deepest darkness.

On this Shemini Atzeres/Simchas Torah, dance like the whole world is watching! They are, and they always have been. They want to see how we comport ourselves in our moments of pain and challenge. Will we fold, or will we rise like a phoenix from the flames?

We are here to be a light unto the nations, to radiate from the divine spark that rests deep in our core. When we do so, we thereby demonstrate for every one of God’s creations that there is a fire that hides within them with which they can choose at any moment to illuminate and eliminate the darkness.

Chag sameach!

—

Pnei Hashem is an introduction to the deepest depths of the human experience based on the esoteric teachings of Torah.  www.pneihashem.com