How to Sustain Joy

If you walked into a synagogue on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, you might reasonably conclude that the people worshipping had been away from the temple for a long time.

If you didn’t know better, you’d hardly guess that this day marked the end of a stretch that began over 3 weeks earlier, with Rosh Hashana.

The long holiday prayer services can feel monotonous and repetitive after the first holiday.

It would be expected, and completely normal, for anyone to be physically and emotionally depleted by the end of this stretch of 3 weeks.

Consider that most people abandon their “New Years resolutions” after 2 weeks. It can be hard to sustain the energy that we take into something new.

Given this, you might reasonably expect that everyone would be going through the motions, putting one foot in front of the other just to make it across the finish line.

So you might be surprised by what you would find on Simchat Torah:

Unabashed singing and dancing. The enthusiasm is palpable. The joy is infectious.

The atmosphere is buoyant, joyful, celebratory.

You can feel the devotion of the people to worship and celebrate. They are not there because someone is forcing them; they want to be there.

If you walked into a synagogue on Simchat Torah you might observe that it feels like the beginning of a process rather than like an ending.

And that’s because it is.

To be sure, it’s both.

Simchat Torah marks the final encore of the month of holidays that mark the Jewish New Year. After this, it’s “lights out” — literally — until Chanukah.

It’s also when we complete the cycle of reading the Torah.

But this ending is also a beginning.

As soon as we end the last chapter in Deuteronomy, we begin again with Genesis.

It is also a day on which we look forward. We begin to look to our year ahead and what we will do as we reintegrate into life.

Beyond this, we look forward generationally. Simchat Torah puts children front and center by calling all of the children to the Torah. It’s a fun atmosphere for them, and a way of passing on traditions to the next generation.

As I stood in the sanctuary today, I was struck by the joy.

Simchat Torah seems to be a lesson in how to cultivate joy: devotion to creating a future. Joy is part of the legacy we leave to the next generation.

So we celebrate at the end as if it were the beginning, because the ending is the beginning.

A new future begins at every moment.