On Shemini Atzeret, as on the last day of all festivals (separate but not separate!!), the Yizkor remembrance prayer is recited. In many Orthodox synagogues, an appeal is made for some worthy cause. Inevitably, the rabbi or the appeal speaker will summon the theme of the Torah reading that day, a most famous passage used by fund raisers all year long, but especially now: “Ish K’matnat Yado” (each in accordance with the gift of his/her hand, that is, each person according to his/her ability). The Torah tells us that no person should come empty-handed to the sanctuary during the pilgrimage festivals; each should give what he/she can. For some people, tithing themselves is appropriate; for others, it can be too little.... “Ish K’matnat Yado” has come to serve as a catch phrase to right all sorts of imbalances and excuses that people come up with to avoid their fair share of responsibility.
Lunch is our last meal in the sukkah. Some people recite only Kiddush in the sukkah but take their meals in the house. In many homes, however, the family lingers over lunch in the sukkah a little longer, as we take leave of the sukkah for another year. Even though we’ve taken all our meals here for eight days, it hasn’t been too much. Even for me it hasn’t been a burden. In fact, it has been a source of joy, especially on those Indian summer days of late September....
Simchat Torah (Rejoicing of the Torah)
Simchat Torah is a holiday of pure genius—medieval genius, for that is when its unique format was created.
On Simchat Torah we complete the reading of the last few verses of Deuteronomy, and immediately begin again with the first few verses of Genesis. In that act, we tell the whole story of the unending cycle of study of the Torah. But we don’t do in fifteen minutes, as we easily could. We embellish it in a thousand little ways that express and evoke our great love for the Torah. We do it in an outburst of joy and celebration, laughter and gaiety.
Simchat Torah is ushered in by candlelighting. Since this holiday coincides with the second day of Shemini Atzeret, we follow all of the rituals of that sacred day, including the shehecheyanu at candlelighting, the festival Kiddush evening and day, and the festival liturgy. But the holiday celebration is like no other sacred day in the Jewish calendar.
Unlike most other nights of the holidays, the shul is filled to capacity: men, women, and children.
I’m not sure I would bring a potential convert to my synagogue on Simchat Torah, but I personally would not miss it for all the world—the utter lack of awe, the parody, the humor. It is hard to tell if the shul is a place of worship or a vaudeville show. The regular chazzan is retired for the duration. He is replaced with a lay cantor, who chants the Hebrew prayers of Maariv in the most inappropriate tunes: not just melodies from other holidays such as the Yom Kippur liturgy, but old folk classics like “Oh! Susannah” or even popular contemporary tunes, all sung with exaggerated cantorial embellishments. The little boys tie the ad hoc chazzan’s tallit fringes in knots, so that he cannot leave the bimah without stumbling over himself. But of course it is all designed to increase laughter and joy.
After the Maariv, we settle down for hakafot, at which each male member of the congregation goes up in turn to the bimah and is given a Torah scroll. He carries it in his arms in circuit around the synagogue. Those who stand in the pews close to the aisle reach over and kiss each Torah as it passes. There are seven such circuits around the synagogue. As each circuit is completed, there is singing and dancing with the Torah before it is handed over for the next circuit. Children come with small Simchat Torah flags, and empty bags, which they quickly fill up with candy that is showered upon them as they walk around in the Torah procession.
The next morning after Shacharit, the whole system seems to break down again. But there is a perfect order to the chaos. Again, there are seven circuits around the synagogue. In most synagogues in America, one of these seven hakafot is dedicated to the Jews of the Soviet Union. Soviet Jews latched onto Simchat Torah as the one holiday to celebrate Judaism and to defy Russian oppression. This hakafot processional for Soviet Jewry takes place outside, in the street. In many places, the local police will rope off the street for the morning. Our shul is across from a large junior high school, many of whose students are Jewish. As we dance around the Torah, singing “Am Yisroel Chai” (“The Jewish People Lives!”), five hundred faces line up at the windows across the street and peer out. What are they thinking? I wonder.
Following the hakafot, a score of individual minyanim (quorums) are convened throughout the shul so that each adult male can be called up to the Torah for an aliyah. The regular aliyah blessings take on special salience on this day: “Blessed are You … Who has chosen us from amongst all the nations and has given us the Torah. Blessed are You, God, Who gives the Torah.”
It is customary for each man honored with an aliyah to pledge funds to the synagogue or other worthy cause, such as Soviet Jewry.
Once he has had his aliyah, a man will likely amble out into the vestibule where wine and cake are set up on a buffet table; there he makes Kiddush. If his wife remained seated in the shul, he will probably bring in some wine and cake to her. Just as likely, she’s already been offered some by a neighbor.
On Simchat Torah, in many modern Orthodox shuls, the lines separating men and women are less rigid than any other day during the year. For hakafot, men carry the Torah scrolls through the women’s section for the women to kiss. Men march down the women’s aisles, where they would not be found all year long. Essentially, on Simchat Torah, most women are observers while all men are active participants. It can be a lonely holiday for a woman who wants to be in the center of things, doing, not watching. But because there is so little decorum, and so much opportunity to socialize, and so much going on to watch, most Orthodox women are quite satisfied, in fact perfectly happy, with the role of onlooker.
In recent years, however, as feminist consciousness has risen even among Orthodox Jewish women, the desire to participate more actively in this celebration has grown. In a number of Orthodox synagogues, the women are provided with a Torah and they have their own hakafot dancing with the scroll. Many traditionalists (including status quo women) look askance at this new development, but it is spreading.
The very last aliyah in the shul, except for the three “Bridegrooms,” is reserved for the children. Kol Ha’ne’arim—all the children. Every child in the shul, infants held by their fathers, twelve-year-olds who know that this is their last year up there, a hundred or so boys and girls, children gathered together on the bimah, the shul bursting with life. Several large taleitim (prayer shawls) are stretched aloft over them as a canopy; adults pull the tallit taut above the shiny faces with bright and wondrous eyes. There are many favorite moments on Simchat Torah, but this is my sentimental favorite. The aliyah blessing is recited by one adult, who recites along with the children. Parents’ voices chime in with their young. After the second aliyah blessing is recited, the rabbi and congregation bless the children with the classic blessing of Jacob: “The angel who redeems me from all evil will bless the children and call in them my name and the name of my ancestors Abraham and Isaac; and may they multiply and increase in the midst of the land.”
Memories and associations flood my mind: my sweet husband holding three of our babes in his arms at one time under the Kol Ha’ne’arim tallit. I still see Deborah, sky-blue eyes looking up in wonderment. Does she still remember? At what age are these Jewish memories embedded indelibly in the brain? And Rena, my sister. Does she remember when she was a little girl and afraid of the dark? My father told her to say the Jacob blessing each night, and she would no longer be afraid, for God’s angel would watch over her. Every night, for as long as we shared a bedroom, I would hear Rena whisper that blessing after the Shema Yisrael. It must have worked, for no one ever gobbled her up in the dark of the night.
In five minutes, Kol Ha’ne’arim is over. Whatever bit of candy an-adult still holds is showered on the children. The congregation spontaneously begins to sing “And you shall see children born t
o your children. Let there be peace in Israel.”
That alone would have been enough, but there is more. What comes now is the essence of Simchat Torah: the three final aliyot recited by the three chattanim, the three grooms. At Minchah of Yom Kippur, the names of these three special honorees were announced. They are men who are known for their good deeds, their service to the community, their generosity, their Torah learning. The first aliyah goes to the chattan Torah, the groom of the Torah. His portion concludes the reading of Deuteronomy. The second aliyah is given to chattan Bereshit, the groom of Genesis, for whom the first chapter of Genesis, the story of creation, is read. As each new day of creation is described, the congregation chants responsively the last few words. “And it was evening and it was morning, the first (second, … sixth) day.”
The third aliyah is given to chattan maftir, the groom of the reading from the Prophets. On this day, the prophetic reading describes Joshua’s succession after Moses. Not only does the chain of Torah and tradition continue on without end, but the human chain is eternal as well.
I take special pride in the third groom ceremony, the chattan maftir. The first chattanim (grooms) are hallowed traditions going back centuries. The chattan maftir is very new, created some fifteen years ago by my husband when he served as rabbi. Seeking to honor a younger person or a less established one or someone who could not afford the philanthropy frequently honored by the first two groom aliyot, he hit upon the idea of making the Maftir reader also a groom. Since the first two-grooms custom goes back a long way, there are traditional verses of praise and greeting sung in honor of those two grooms. But nothing existed for this third groom, so Yitz composed special grammen (rhyming verses) in his honor.
As it turns out, the chattan maftir affected the other two chattan ceremonies in our synagogue. The traditional verses of greeting the chattan are written in ornate Hebrew and are generally not comprehended by the congregation. By contrast, the gram-men for the chattan maftir were in English and were warm, witty, and comprehensible; so the other two honorees were cast in the shadow. By popular demand, grammen were added to the greeting of the first two grooms as well. Thus, good spirits and liturgical creativity spilled over to another area of synagogue life. Most people think of Orthodoxy as conserving or maintaining embattled traditions. I prefer the thought that it embraces the entire past and tradition of the Jewish people—including the ceremonies added out of love and joy or sadness—in each generation. I feel like a special participant in the history of the tradition as I watch the chattan maftir go down the aisle each year. And I think to myself that perhaps someday women will be honored with these special and beautiful synagogue honors.
This is what it’s like: as each groom is called up to the Torah, he is ushered in with a special “marriage” ceremony. Several of his close friends accompany him down the aisle, holding the poles of a velvet canopy under which he walks. Some of the candy gets recycled; now it is showered upon the groom like rice at a real wedding. A gaggle of children follows the procession, scrambling to the floor as pieces of candy fall. As the chattan (groom) proceeds with his entourage down the aisle toward the bimah and the beloved Torah, the rabbi sings a rhymed verse which he has composed for the day. It is a This Is Your Life in song, full of humor and warm feelings of camaraderie.
I said I wouldn’t bring a potential convert, but I’ve changed my mind. In fact, I would pick this day above all others to introduce someone to Judaism, just as the wise and spiritually hungry Russian Jews have done. Amid the riotousness, a joy and love for Torah, God, and community shine through. Amid the disorder is a pervasive and satisfying sense of order, of knowing what to expect, of where and how to belong. It is the perfect holiday to bring in someone who is searching for a way to fill an emptiness in his or her soul. No matter the apparent sexism of this day. That, too, we will work out.
Mussaf is anticlimactic. In fact, hardly anyone is left in the synagogue. It used to be that the chattanim offered a joint Kiddush after services, and of course everyone stayed till the last bit of chopped liver was gone. Now that that has been discontinued—probably because of cost for a growing congregation—and everyone is impatient to get home to lunch and a nap before Minchah and Maariv roll around again.
Finally, it’s time for Havdalah. Sukkot et al. are over.
It’s been a wonderful month. Many highs and a few lows. Starting with Elul, working our way through Selihot, Rosh Hashanah, the solemnity of Yom Kippur, the sweetness of Sukkot, the realities of Shemini Atzeret, the ribaldry of Simchat Torah. During the long, cold nights of winter, as we sip Sylvia’s Three Hundred Proof, we will long for these days. But meanwhile, we have spent a lot of time in shul. No one is sorry to see the month of Heshvan come. Bland Heshvan, without a single holiday to mar its face. It is just what we need as we begin to get down to the work we have interrupted so often. A homiletics teacher once said to his class of rabbinic students: “When Heshvan comes, you’ll feel like you’re on vacation.” Maybe that’s why the last Havdalah after Simchat Torah is the most wonderful Havdalah of all. I feel like tossing my besamim etrog in the air and shouting, “Hooray! Hurrah! We made it! Now back to reality!”
CHAPTER · 19
CHANUKAH
No, Chanukah is not the Jewish answer to Christmas. But as far as American Jewish children go—and their parents, too, for that matter—the fact that Chanukah comes out in December, lasts for eight full days, and has trappings such as Chanukah gelt (coins), gifts, latkes, and lots of candles to light doesn’t hurt the Diaspora ego one bit.
There are four levels to the story of Chanukah, each addressing the Jews of any given generation with a different sense of urgency and immediacy. At one level, it is the story of religious freedom and national sovereignty. At the second, Chanukah is about Jewish particularism versus assimilation. The third is a tale of the few against the many, the weak against the mighty and powerful. And the fourth is about lights and miracles.
In the year 167 B.C.E., a small band of Jews—today, we would call them guerrillas—took to the hills of Judea. They had had just about all they could take from the Greek oppressors. And besides, they were in mortal danger. But instead of merely hiding safely in the hills they knew so well, they undertook a risky war against their oppressors. It was a war that would bring them, three years later, victorious to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
It had all begun two hundred years earlier, when Alexander the Great conquered that part of the hemisphere. Judea, and its capital Jerusalem, became part of the Macedonian empire. After Alexander died, in 323 B.C.E., his kingdom was divided into three parts, with Judea falling to the Syrian Greeks. Altogether, this did not affect greatly the lives of the nationals of the various countries, for they were generally permitted to offer fealty and taxes to the nominal ruler, yet maintain a discreet self-autonomy in most areas of life.
Yet, while there was no coercion, the process of assimilating Jews to Greek culture was under way, both in the Diaspora cities and in Judea itself. There were many Jews who welcomed the ways of the stranger. By and large, these were the upper class, the landed gentry, the trend setters, those close to the ruling party. They were the Jewish aristocracy, and there were many of the priestly class among them. These were Jews who were informed by Greek values, enamored of Greek culture, and infatuated with Greek mores. Not only the Greek way of thinking, but the Hellenic style of life appealed to them. In many cases, this meant relinquishing the Jewish way of life and Jewish practices. These Jewish Hellenists frequented the gymnasia, and participated naked in the exercises as their upper-class Greek fellows were wont to do. (Interestingly, however, they were careful to use “kosher” oils to anoint themselves, rather than pagan oils.) Some of these Hellenists ceased to circumcise their children; the more extreme among them went so far as to uncircumcise themselves, that is, to undergo painful surgery that would pull down the foreskin, thereby removing signs of the “primitive” rite their parents had forced upon them as eight-day-old infants.
Although they were a sizable and significant group, in varying degrees of assimilation, by no means did they constitute the whole of the Jewish population. There were many Jews who resented and resisted the religious and cultural incursions of the Greeks. However, as long as it was a matter of assimilation by choice, the devout and faithful Jews, as well as the moderate Hellenists, could criticize their errant brothers, but they themselves could go their own way—the Jewish way. But even this state of affairs was soon to deteriorate.
Under the rulership of the Seleucidan king Antiochus IV, the Greeks stepped up the policy of religious aggrandizement against the semiautonomous Jewish state. In the year 169 B.C.E., a Greek city was established opposite the Temple mount. Not willing to content themselves with heavy taxes levied against the Jews, not satisfied alone with influence by voluntarism, the Greeks instituted religious practices, including pig sacrifices and pagan cultic worship, in the Holy Temple. This was by no means a haphazard act. Their scheme was to render impotent the central locus of Jewish spirituality—the Holy Temple—so as to bring down the entire spiritual enterprise more easily. And to round out the picture, they forbade Jewish religious practices, such as the study of Torah, observance of Shabbat, and circumcision.
The more extreme Hellenists went along with all this, even welcomed and supported it. The moderate Hellenists were made uneasy but remained fairly quiet. Trouble, however, was brewing underneath. The resistance of the masses was growing.
How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household Page 37