Weekly Dvar Torah: We Have Every Reason to Dance
From Siberia to Simchas Torah
We are fast approaching Simchas Torah, after an entire week of Zman Simchaseinu—the time of our rejoicing.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are behind us. Now Hashem tells us: Rejoice!
On Sukkos we rejoice. Jews sing Hallel, shake the Lulav and Esrog, sit in the Sukkah and celebrate. At night comes Simchas Beis Hashoeva.
In Crown Heights, thousands upon thousands of Jews dance in the streets, night after night, until morning.
This is Zman Simchaseinu.
And then, this week, something extraordinary happened.
In the middle of the night, thousands were dancing. Suddenly, the music stopped.
An announcement was made: there was a dangerous situation involving an airplane filled with Jews. They needed our prayers.
Thousands prayed.
And as soon as they finished—
the music went back on.
Back to dancing!
It reminded me of the Yom Kippur War.
The war broke out on Yom Kippur, 1973, and the early reports were frightening. Thousands were with the Rebbe for Tishrei, including many Israelis worried about their families and their country.
Yet the Rebbe insisted: Now is Zman Simchaseinu. Now we must rejoice.
He encouraged more Farbrengens, more singing, more dancing. When one group became tired, another took over. During Sukkos came the dramatic turnaround in the war, and on Simchas Torah the Rebbe encouraged members of Israel’s diplomatic delegation to move forward with joy, confidence, and pride.
Perhaps this week was Jewish history condensed into a few days.
Throughout our long history, nations and empires have tried to destroy the Jew, his Torah, or both. Yet after everything, the Jew and the Torah are still here dancing together.
This year that thought hit me very personally.
My dear friend Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik, the Rebbe’s Shliach in Tyumen, Siberia, sent us videos of Sukkos there.
Siberia!
For me, that word carries enormous emotion.
My ancestors were exiled there and died because they remained faithful to Torah and Mitzvos. Rabbi Gorelik’s family has a similar history. A Sukkah? A Lulav and Esrog? If they managed these Mitzvos at all, it had to be hidden and dangerous.
And now Rabbi Gorelik shows us a huge, beautiful Sukkah with transparent walls for everyone to see.
And what do they see?
Jews coming openly.
Jews making a Brocha on the Lulav and Esrog.
Jews smiling.
Jews dancing.
Then Rabbi Michoel Oyshi in Kaluga, Russia, joined the competition: more Jews, more Lulavim, more enormous smiles, more dancing.
I looked at those pictures and became very emotional.
I grew up in the 1960s. Part of my family was trapped behind the Iron Curtain. We were in free America and barely knew what was happening to them.
We worried. We prayed. We sang Hoshia es Amecha—Hashem¬, save Your people. The Rebbe cried and prayed for Soviet Jews and did everything possible to help them. He assured us they would eventually come out.
Frankly, we couldn’t imagine it.
The Iron Curtain looked permanent.
And then it fell.
Now I am watching videos from Siberia and Kaluga of Jews openly celebrating Sukkos.
You tried to destroy Yiddishkeit there?
Look who’s dancing now!
My father used to say that today it is easier to believe that Moshiach will come than it was then to believe that the Iron Curtain would fall.
And this week gave us still more reason to dance.
When the Jews aboard that airplane were saved, Jews responded with Hallel, gratitude and dancing.
Suddenly, a Posuk we read on Simchas Torah sounds almost as if it were written for this week:
“Ein ka-El Yeshurun, rocheiv shamayim b’ezrecha” — “There is none like the G-d of Yeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your assistance.”
Rocheiv shamayim b’ezrecha.¬
Hashem rides the skies to help us.
Fifty years after the miraculous rescue at Entebbe, when the Rebbe urged Jews to recognize Hashem’s miracles and rejoice, Jews once again responded to salvation with joy.
So yes, I am emotionally charged this Simchas Torah.
But the emotion makes me want to dance.
Because look at us!
After everything, we are still here.
The Torah is still here.
On Simchas Torah we don’t open the Torah and study it. We keep it closed, wrapped in its mantle.
We hug it.
The greatest scholar and the simplest Jew hold the same Torah.
A famous story tells of a simple Jew who knew almost nothing but danced enthusiastically on Simchas Torah.
“Why are you dancing?” someone asked. “How much Torah do you know?”
He answered:
“When my brother makes a wedding, don’t I dance at his wedding?”
That’s Simchas Torah.
We’re all brothers. It’s our Torah. It’s our wedding.
So we dance.
The Rebbe emphasized that Zman Simchaseinu (plural) is a shared joy—our joy with Hashem and Hashem’s joy with us.
Hashem looks down at His children and says:
I know what you have endured. I know how you have been tested. I know how many people tried to break you.
And you’re still dancing with My Torah.
So this Simchas Torah, let’s dance.
Dance for the miracles of this week. Dance for the Jews of Siberia. Dance for our grandparents who couldn’t dance openly. Dance because the Iron Curtain fell. Dance because after thousands of years nobody managed to separate the Jew from his Torah.
And fill these forty-eight hours of Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah with enough Simcha and Brochos for the entire year.
And let us dance toward the greatest Simcha of all.
Yeshayah describes the Geulah:
“U’feduyei Hashem yeshuvun, u’va’u Tzion b’rinah, v’simchas olam al rosham; sason v’simcha yasigu, v’nasu yagon va’anachah.”
“The redeemed of Hashem shall return, and they shall come to Zion with song, with everlasting joy upon their heads; gladness and joy shall overtake them, and sorrow and sighing shall flee.”
For thousands of years, sorrow came—
and we danced anyway.
Now let us dance until the sorrow itself finally flees.
Until there is no Golus. No persecution. No interruption in the dancing.
Only Sason V’Simcha.
Only everlasting joy.
Only Moshiach dancing together with every Jew, with the Torah, in Eretz Yisroel—
and this time, the music will never have to stop.
Have a Joyous Simchas Torah, Joy, Joy, and more Joy,
Gut Shabbos, Gut Yomtov
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
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