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     This week's newsletter focuses on the holiday of Simhat Torah when we mark the conclusion of the Torah reading cycle and begin again with Genesis 1. How do we cultivate joy in these challenging times? We carry the Torah scroll as we dance, hoping the Torah will carry us lighting our way even in darkness.                                                                                                                                                                                     Michael   
                                                               (mjstrassfeld@gmail.com;  michaelstrassfeld.com) 
                                                                                       Credit for photo Nathan Dumlao
                                             
Intention/kavana for the week
On Simhat Torah, we are to rejoice with the Torah. How can we do that in a time of fear of a pandemic, and of anxiety and uncertainty over the future of our country and the world? This week's song is suggestive of a practice of joy/simha in difficult times.

First: Moses rejoices over his portion in life. As challenging as these times are, we are blessed with life, relationships, and things we enjoy. We have abilities and character strengths that have brought us this far. 
Second: It is important to hold on to the values and principles (our understanding of Torah) that help guide us in facing life. We want to be true to our self and respond wisely to the challenges we face. We understand that to respond with anger or hatred is to add to the darkness of our time.

Third: The practice of reflection allows us to see more clearly what are the problems we must face and what are distractions or illusions. Shabbat is a time for reflection. It is a time to withdraw from the pressures and conflicts of the work week to nourish our soul. Resting and resilience go together.
Song:

Yismah Moshe be-matnas helko, ki eved ne’eman karasa lo, klil tiferes be’rosho nasata lo, be’amdo lifaneikha al har Sinai shnei luhos avadim horid be-yado, ve-khasuv bahem   shemiras shabbos,    ve-khen kasuv
be-soraseikha

Moses rejoiced at the gifts of his life, You called him faithful servant, adorning him with splendor as he stood before You on Mt. Sinai. Two stone tablets he carried inscribed with Shabbat observance as written in Your Torah

from Shabbat liturgy
To listen to the song

 A word of Torah:    

Embodying Torah:
        After the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, Moses goes up on the mountain and spends forty days and nights receiving the rest of the Torah. He then carries the Ten Commandments carved on tablets down the mountain. Seeing the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf, he smashes the tablets. When God agrees to forgive the people, Moses is told to go up on the mountain again for an additional forty days and nights and brings down a second set of tablets.
        The Sefat Emet (19th century Hasidic master) asks: Why did Moses have to stay up on the mountain for another forty days? After all he had just received all of the Torah. It should have taken only enough time to make a new set of tablets and maybe a quick review?! The Sefat Emet answers that actually, the second set of tablets is not the same Torah. The sin of the Golden Calf had happened in between. Perhaps this is why we have two holidays celebrating Torah—Shavuot and Simhat Torah. The Torah of truth is not the ideal Torah given at Sinai. The Torah of truth is the lived Torah of everyday reality. It is influenced by imperfect people who strive to live in the light of Torah. When we are called to the Torah in synagogue, we praise the One “who has given us a Torah of truth and planted in us eternal life.” The word truth in Hebrew is emet. It begins with the first letter and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet as thought to say that truth encompasses everything, our hopes and visions and mistakes and stumbles.
        On Simchat Torah, we take the Torah scrolls and circle around the synagogue leaving space at the center for the holy or the Holy One. We literally hold the Torah in our arms physically expressing what we recite each Shabbat—"it is a tree of life to those who grasp it.” It isn’t enough to study Torah as we do on Shavuot. We need to make it planted inside us. We strive to embody Torah by dancing it with our feet. In that way, we learn how to walk in the path (derekh Adonai) that God sets out for Abraham.
        This journey began in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve tasted of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Exiled from the Garden, they did not eat of the second forbidden tree—the Tree of Life. Humans became mortal. And yet, the Torah is referred to as the Tree of Life, not because we would live forever if we observed it perfectly. The Torah allows us to taste eternity by engaging in lives of purpose and meaning. Through Torah, we are connected to the Jewish past, we help to create the future, and most of all we can be present to this moment.
 
 
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