Simchat Torah

In Jewish life, we celebrate a string of holidays in the fall; Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, then Simchat Torah.  Rosh Hashanah is our new year, and ten days later we observe Yom Kippur, together known as the High Holy Days, days marked by prayer and reflection, feasts and fasting. We remember those who lack food, and vow to live a better life in the new year. At Sukkot we move from the indoors of the sanctuary, to outdoor decorated huts where we celebrate the harvest, and remember our ancestors who lived in such huts as they wandered the desert. And at the end of this festival comes another, Simchat Torah, my favorite of them all.
Simchat means joy, and this holiday is about the joy of Torah. If you think of all the Jews of the world as a family, then our Torah is our most treasured heirloom.  It has been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years, and on this day we pass it on to our children, take it out, parade it around, and generally get a little crazy.
My youngest, my Chief Executive, is in kindergarten this year, so at Simchat Torah she and her other kindergarten friends observed their consecration, when we handed them small replicas of our treasured Torah, marking the beginning of their formal Jewish education.
Then came the fun part.  At Simchat Torah we take out our Torahs and dance seven laps around the sanctuary.  There's often wine involved, klezmer music, and a lot of spinning and hopping.  After the fifth trip, we pause, and we gather all the children into the middle of a large gathering space, and all the adults form a circle around them.  And in this circle we unroll our Torah scroll, a long roll of parchment paper, hand written in Hebrew text.  As dozens of adults help to hold up the scroll surrounding the children, our rabbis become like grandparents pulling out a treasured family photo album, pointing out stories that get repeated every year, remembering ancestors long gone but ever and always part of the family.  They walk around the unrolled scroll and point to specific events.  "Here's where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac,... oh, and here are the Ten Commandments... building the Temple... oh! and right here is where we left Egypt and sang on the shores after crossing the Red Sea..." 
Every year our head rabbi re-tells the story of this particular Torah.  He stands up a bit on his toes and raises both eyebrows, his voice animated, so proud of this treasure of ours, and he tells the kids how members of our own congregation held quills and wrote some of the letters in our Torah, that their own labor and attention went into creating this special treasure of ours. This year he went on to explain that if one letter of our Torah were incomplete, we would consider it unkosher, and that if we give that much care and attention to the letters of a document, think how much more we care for each other. If one member of our community is hurt, we consider ourselves broken, and we do whatever we can to care for each other.
As the Torah remains unrolled, a member of the congregation then reads the last reading of the year, the last few verses of Deuteronomy, and dramatically, in the same breath, runs from one end to the next to read the first verse of Genesis, symbolizing that we are never done reading and studying this treasured scripture. As the Torah scroll is then rolled again, we go back to singing and dancing in two more loops around our sanctuary. My oldest daughter, in true Butterfly form, makes up her own moves, spinning and kicking with graceful arm swirls, less and less conscious of herself as we go.  Dancing in loops evolves into general dancing and celebration, the Simchat Torah after-party. The crowd thins, but the die-hards stick around for Hebrew line dancing until they're too tired and thirsty to go on.
I love all of our fall holidays.  At Rosh Hashanah we dip apples in honey and hope for a sweet new year. At Yom Kippur we take the food we wood have eaten ourselves and give it to those less fortunate. We alternate between festive meals at home with our families and reflective, thoughtful worship together. We spend weeks giving thanks for the most basic gifts of food and shelter. But at Simchat Torah it's like all of our reflection and joy culminates and we're so happy just to have our traditions and to pass them on to our children.
For my girls, I hope in all the celebration they left knowing that they are inheriting a beloved tradition, and that they are part of a community that cares for them, celebrates their milestones, loves to teach them, and would consider itself broken were they ever to find themselves in trouble or in need.
That they can grow up here, and even when they're teenagers, they can hang out with their friends, dancing and singing, and having a good time.
That our Torah is a treasured gift, to be treated with reverence, but also to be brought out and celebrated, paraded around and enjoyed.
But at the end of the day, on Simchat Torah, what I took away, what I hope they took home with them, is that being Jewish is a lot of fun.