The festival of Simchat Torah comes at the very end of high holiday season, just over three weeks from the start of the Jewish New Year. Like most holidays, Simchat Torah is honored by ritual candle lighting, special meals, and added prayer services. It is also distinguished by two unique ceremonies: 1) joyous dancing around the synagogue lectern with the Torah Scrolls in hand; 2) reading in the synagogue from the closing section of the Five Books of Moses—and then immediately starting the cycle of Torah study over again by reading from the first chapter of the first book, The Book of Genesis. In some circles, people toast “l’chaim!” (“To Life!”) to enhance the joyous spirit of the day.
For Professor Wiesel, Simchat Torah carried many special associations. First, it was his birthday. Second, he repeatedly evokes the profound effect of having witnessed in the mid-1960s the fervent Simchat Torah celebration of thousands in the main Moscow synagogue. Third, he frequently refers to the merit of Jews who, under other oppressive conditions, saw it as essential to continue the observance of this Torah-centered festival with customary joy. And fourth, his general focus on the theme—and experience—of beginning anew dovetails with the Simchat Torah practice of starting the Torah afresh. For Elisha Wiesel, the power of the Simchat Torah dancing spurs reflection on Moses’ being granted far-reaching vision—indeed, a form of spiritual foresight that extends to our own time and place. As always, may we be inspired by the Wiesels’ words, deeds, vision and devotion.
Modern Legends, December 14, 1967
[The Lubavitcher Rebbe] is a great man, and I like the way he’s conducting his farbrengen, his celebrations. One evening I spent with him couple of hours, and I tried to convert him to Vizhnitz, because I am a Vizhnitzer Hasid. It didn’t work.
A couple of months later, it was Simchat Torah. I came there. There were 2000 people in this hall. And I felt embarrassed because I had a beret, a French beret on with a rain coat. I didn’t look like a Hasid. I rather looked like James Bond, you know. And all of them, of course, looked like Hasidim. And because of my rain coat and my beret, the rebbe saw me. Everybody did.
So he was sitting on a stage like this surrounded with his Hasidim, and in the hall there were three tables in the form of a T. So he called me. I felt embarrassed, and I really didn’t want to go up. So I stayed there. He called me again. I still didn’t go. But then he said something to his people, and literally I was lifted up in the air by some 10 arms, and a second later I found myself standing on the table opposite him. Well, you can imagine how I felt.
And the rebbe says to me, “Reb Eliezer, you don’t come and say l’chaim and wish me l’chaim?” I said, “Rebbe, don’t you see? I went over a 1000 heads to come and wish you l’chaim.” He says, “Is that how one drinks l’chaim in Vizhnitz?” I said, “Rebbe, I am not in Vizhnitz. I am in Lubavitch.” So he says, “But do as one does in Lubavitch.” I say, “How does one do in Lubavitch?” He says, “I’ll show you.” And I was offered a glass full of vodka. So I say, “Rebbe, it’s very good, but in Vizhnitz one doesn’t drink alone.” He says, “In Lubavitch [we don’t] either.”
So he said, “l’chaim,” and I said, “l’chaim.” But I am a very poor drinker. So I sipped a very short swallow of vodka. And he says, “Is that how one drinks in Vizhnitz?” I said, “Rebbe, I am not in Vizhnitz. I am in Lubavitch.” So he says, “But then drink as one drinks in Lubavitch.” I said, “Show me, how does one drink in Lubavitch?” And he says, “I’ll show you.” He took his glass and emptied it. I said, “Rebbe, so strange, it’s exactly the same way one drinks in Vizhnitz.” And I drank it [all].
So he says, “Of course, for Vizhnitz it’s nothing.” I said, “How did you guess it’s nothing?” And I got a second glass. And my head was already turning. So I drank it. He drank it. And then he says, “Another one?” I said, “Of course.” The strange part about it is that the 2,000 Hasidim there were sure that the rebbe and me were talking roza d’rozim , you know, some very important -- who knows what Kabbalistic secrets!
Then when the rebbe saw that one more glass and I would be crushed: the first victim of Vizhnitz in Lubavitch. So he pitied me, and he says, “Well, what do you want me to wish you?” And I said, “Rebbe, a Vizhnitzer rebbe knows what to wish.” He says, “But we are in Lubavitch.” So I said, “Then do what you do in Lubavitch.” So he said, “Should I wish you a new beginning?”
Which was very clever, I must say, because it has so many levels. One, another glass of vodka. Two, he knew that Simchat Torah is my birthday. (They know everything, have such an intelligence!) Three, we were carrying on a dialogue for years about religion and Hasidism and faith and so forth. And, of course, he might have meant a new beginning. But I was so drunk that I dared to ask him, “Rebbe, a new beginning for both of us?” And he said, “For both of us.”
Come Celebrate, April 6, 2006
The first time I came back from the Soviet Union, in 1965, it’s here that actually I [gave] the first report about Simchat Torah, and I will never forget it. “When the time comes, and I will have to appear before the celestial tribunal, and they will ask, ‘What did you do with your life?’ I will say, ‘I was there in Moscow. I saw them dancing on Simchat Torah.’” And I told the tale of the dancing.
And I’m convinced that if we managed afterwards to open the gates of the Soviet Union, to bring liberty to hundreds of millions of people, they will never forget that the first to brave the dictatorial regime of Stalin, and Khrushchev, and Brezhnev were those young boys and girls who came to shul, to Arkhipova Street on Simchat Torah: to sing their allegiance to their people, our people, to their destiny.
Why Pray?, April 14, 2005
The celebrated Gaon of Vilna, one of the very, very great scholars of all generations (who was unfortunately a great adversary of the Hasidic movement as well), he said that the biblical law, v’samachta b’chagekha, that you must rejoice on the holidays--[that this law] is the most difficult commandment in the Torah.
And I could never understand this puzzling remark. Only during the war did I understand. Those of us who, in the course of their journey to the end of hope, managed to dance on Simchat Torah on the day of the celebration of the law; those Jews who studied Talmud by heart, while carrying stones on their back; those Jews who went on whispering the Sabbath songs while performing hard labor: they taught us how Jews should behave in the face of adversity. For my contemporaries a few generations ago, that commandment was one commandment that was impossible to observe--yet they observed it.
Women in the Bible: Miriam, October 14, 1993
Why do we begin [the 92Y lectures] on the Thursday after Simchat Torah? It’s symbolic, because on Simchat Torah we end the Torah and we begin again--which means we never cease to learn. You think you know everything? Begin again. To be a Jew is to be able to go on learning. And, to the last breath, to want to go on learning. Ahavat Torah, the love of Torah, is as powerful as Yirat Shamayim, the fear of heaven--and perhaps more pleasant.
Elisha Wiesel: Simchat Torah, Carlebach Shul, 2018
How dare we rejoice? How dare we rejoice!
Our country is divided, our brothers in Europe are hated by anti-semites on the right, our children on college campuses are hated by anti-semites on the left, our family in Israel wrestle with an enemy who chooses to oppress their people rather than pursue peace, our oceans fill with garbage, we communicate disagreement by screaming at each other over little electronic screens we cannot seem to escape.
How dare we rejoice. How dare we rejoice when we have so much work to do.
And yet if we do not take these holy days after Yom Kippur when we have been judged, if we do not take them and recharge our batteries how will we recharge those around us?
I always wondered what did my grandfather tell my father to help keep him alive through the darkest of nights. And how was my father able to keep going, able to do his work of fighting for justice and his work of building a family when he had lived through that darkest of nights.
And I do not know what words Shlomo my grandfather gave my father but I know that in Auschwitz they wrapped tefillin!
And I know that my father Eliezer who could not say kaddish for his father in the misery of the camps - that out of his destroyed faith he blew on a spark and kindled it into anger and defiance and as he got older he returned to the tradition of his father!
And if you could see the joy in his eyes as I watched him dance with the Torah on Simchat Torah in Moscow of 1979 you would know that what is stronger than revenge or justice or even stubborness is the love and joy that we feel for each other across generations and across denominations and civilizations, our people of the book.
My father would go into the high holidays somber, cognizant of his days, sometimes consumed with the thought that he had failed to live up to the expectations of the dead. But he would emerge from Simchat Torah recharged, with a joy undimmed even by the rejection and distance I needlessly presented to him as a young adult.
And now he is gone and he cannot recharge me, as he did, with his words - his embrace - his unfailing patience. And so with him in the next world I turn to the same source that he did: Our stories. Our heritage. Our joy in being connected to countless generations before us, and countless Jews across the oceans and flavors of Judaism. And my work becomes extending the platform my father built. My father fought through the kingdom of death and the wasteland beyond it and gave me life, gave me confidence, gave me a good name. And if he blessed me only once a year on Yom Kippur then I will bless my children every week on Shabbos. And if we sang only Shalom Aleichem at our Shabbat table then I will teach my children Eshet Chayil. And if my father was the only one who sang hasidic melodies softly to himself around the table then my children will grow up hearing them sung at the top of our voices surrounded by family and friends! And I will look to my children to raise families that cannot imagine not being together on Shabbos. And I will look to them to play their role in repairing this world!
V'samachta bechagecha. With the weight of the world on us, the past and future, we must rejoice and be equal to the efforts ahead.
Even Moshe Rabeinu needed to recharge when faced with the sin of the golden calf. He asked to see God's presence and after doing so he descended from the mountain and glowed and proclaimed God’s Law.
May it be a year of mitzvot and joy and passion and glory as each of you descend from this mountain top tomorrow bringing your Torah into the New Year and recharging all those around you for our work ahead. Chag sameach.