Join Rabbi Daniel Fellman and Cantor David Reinwald for a service honoring the conclusion of our yearly Torah reading. We’ll also celebrate our young children starting their religious education with us and our new members!

As part of the celebration, the Torah scrolls are taken from the ark and carried or danced around the synagogue seven times. During the Torah service, the concluding section of the fifth book of the Torah, D’varim (Deuteronomy), is read, and immediately following, the opening section of Genesis, or B’reishit, is read. This practice represents the cyclical nature of the relationship between the Jewish people and the reading of the Torah.

Come pray, dance, and sing with us at this joyful celebration!

(Photo: Dale Lazar)

ABOUT SIMCHAT TORAH
Simchat Torah celebrates the end (and the beginning) of the annual Torah-reading cycle. Just as we reach the concluding section of Deuteronomy (the fifth book of the Torah), we start over once again with the beginning of Genesis (the first book of the Torah).

Only in the 11th century did the ninth day after the beginning of Sukkot take on both the name and the festive ritual of what we now recognize as Simchat Torah. An annual holiday of this nature implies a one-year cycle of Torah reading, but such was not always the case. In ancient Palestine, Jews followed a triennial, or three-year, cycle of Torah reading. The one-year cycle was a custom of the Babylonian Jewish community. It was not until the 8th century that the great majority of Jews adopted the annual system. Simchat Torah as an annual observance, then, emerged only after the divergence in customs over the Torah reading cycle was resolved.