Simchat Torah with no easy answers

It’s Hoshana Rabbah, a day of reckoning. But in effect, the reckoning that is on my mind and I would venture to guess on almost everyone’s, is the difficulty of tonight and even more, of tomorrow. It was one thing to arrive at “October 7,” but that’s a calendar date, albeit one that has been referred to nonstop all year. Simchat Torah is a day associated with memories and the day we have been dreading since last year, when rumors started to emerge from the butchery that was happening in the south, on one of the most joyous of holidays.

Blogs have been written and shared and I read them eagerly trying to find the words that soothe, but they all end with how, despite it all, we are going to embrace Simchat Torah this year. I’m not there yet.

I didn’t make it to shul (synagogue services) last year after a night of bad dreams and woke to sirens. In between running up and down to the mamad (safe room) from the rockets that were sent every few few minutes, the sound of beautiful and triumphant singing and dancing emerged from a shul near my home and I went to my mirpeset (balcony) to look and to marvel. They’re not letting Hamas win, I thought with a soft smile as I sang along with them.

I was wrong and like many others, would discover that only many hours later. The horrific truth is that we unknowingly danced and sang while families in our country, just an hour and a half hour away were being burnt alive in their homes, while our soldiers were being beheaded and women at a festival were being raped and mutilated. We danced and sang throughout. It’s a reality I have struggled to accept the entire year. A year later, we have shown signs of unbelievable victory in ways we could never have envisioned and yet, Hamas won Simchat Torah last year. On that one day, they brought us to our knees.

And now we are at Simchat Torah again and we are going to dance and sing to the same songs. Songs that covered death. I haven’t been able to hear some of those songs playing this year because of the association.

I am eager to find solace and direction. I read suggestions proposed by Rabbi Tamir Granot, who lost his own son in the war, and by Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon, and found some to be powerful ideas, but as I read through shul bulletins and program initiatives, I wonder: if someone from Be’eri or Kfar Aza walked into a shul and saw us dance, would they feel that we were dancing through their pain again?

Last night, on the way to a Tikun Leil Hoshana Rabbah at the Ohel haGevurah, led by bereaved parents of soldiers who were killed during this war, my husband and I resolved the obvious: there is no right answer. Simchat Torah is an incredibly joyous day that is not really suited for grief. And this year, one year after a day that is associated with so much trauma — some more personal, some less — but traumatic memories for all, we are meant to celebrate.

It’s a paradox and isn’t going to have a neat answer. All blogs, all shul programs are offering gray, and gray is messy, and this year is messy. It is going to be a day of highs and lows, and of feeling uncomfortable when it’s high and uncomfortable when it’s low.

And the truth is, like all the blogs are sharing, there is no other answer than to arrive with: “But it’s still Simchat Torah.”

Concluding our conversation, Moshe and I arrived at the “Sukkah haGevura” in Jerusalem, a tent that was packed and I sat uncomfortably on the floor beside girls my daughters’ ages, surrounded by pictures of the sweet faces of soldiers who have been killed in this war. We listened as fathers spoke about their sons and as rabbis offered words of perspective at a tent that is held up by those suffering unbelievable pain, but who are choosing to project strength.

Rabbi Reuven Fireman shared that Sukkot represents a paradox of uncertainty and rejoicing, but that uncertainty breeds strength. When life is far from perfect and when we have so many unresolved questions, we become so much deeper.

Rabbi Yosef Mendelovitch spoke about being at the airport with a ticket to Israel in hand, about to leave the Iron Curtain behind, only to be arrested and imprisoned in a Soviet prison for 12 years for being a Zionist and refusing to inform on his friends who were Jewish educators in Russia. Over those 12 years, he learned how to daven in prison, and he became shomer shabbat/sabbath-observant. What’s more, he became a person of such strength. Similar to so many other unbelievable people in Am Yisrael whom we have met through tragedy this year, like Iris Chaim, Rachel Goldberg Polin, and Tzvika Mor. I could never dare utter the words that were said last night from people who have faced such tragedy head on and yet, I appreciate that paradox brings strength. And paradox is what Simchat Torah will be this year.

I think of the story (and now song) of how Holocaust survivors danced with the lone child they found who had survived the Shoah in lieu of a Torah scroll, eager to continue on Simchat Torah, despite their horrific grief. Simchat Torah that year meant something different to those Holocaust survivors than it had ever meant before. Over the past few months, we have spent more time thinking about Simchat Torah than any other time since the Shoah. The words this year, sang jubilantly or sadly, will have a meaning this year that they never quite had before. Simchat Torah will have purpose this year that we have never known before in our lifetimes.

No matter how any shul or any person spends the day — shadowed in pain, and framed in the gray mix of celebration and grief — it will have meaning because that is the choice and it is a balance.

And if only our beloved hostages could somehow miraculously come home before tonight, we could celebrate with even fuller hearts.