Dvar Torah: Chosen to get the Torah, Dance, Dance and Dance.

After rejoicing over our victory knowing that we were inscribed for a great sweet new year, now it’s time to rejoice with our mission for the rest of the year.

We have a mission in life; we’re not just drifters living an aimless purposeless life.

This is something to celebrate.

Our book of life is our holy Torah.

G-d chose the Jews to receive the Torah.

This is something to celebrate.

Torah as a book of wisdom should be celebrated by scholars, yet this is not the case, the holiday is called Simchas Torah (the joy of Torah), and we dance with the Torah for 48 hours, but we do it with a closed rolled up Torah, we do not sit down with an open Torah to study it.

Those who dance with the Torah are not just the scholars, but rather every single Jew, and on Simchas Torah day every single Jew gets called up to the Torah to make a blessing on the Torah, not just the scholars.

Why would a non-scholar celebrate the Torah, shouldn’t it remain the domain of the scholar?

This is the clear message of the joy of Simchas Torah; the Torah belongs to every single Jew regardless of whom he is.

That’s why every Jew dances.

That’s why every Jew gets an Aliya (called up to the Torah) and makes a blessing on the Torah.

We rejoice over the fact that G-d gave us this gift of Torah which becomes the inheritance of every single Jew to be his guide and blueprint for his mission in life.

That’s why we dance for 48 hours.

We make a blessing not for the Torah itself, but rather we make a blessing thanking G-d for choosing us to give us the Torah.

That’s why we all get the Aliya and we’re called up to the Torah.

What to do with it? That’s what we have the rest of the year to work on.

But on Simchas Torah we are excited because we got this amazing gift directly from G-d.

So regardless of your scholarly status, just by knowing how lucky you are, and that G-d chose you to give to you His Torah as a personal gift, this should keep you dancing away for the next 48 hours.

And as the Rebbe says, that by dancing away during the 48 hours of Simchas Torah we can draw buckets and barrels full with all the blessings for the entire year (even more than on Rosh Hashana).

So dance your heart out, and your feet away, during the next 48 hours, and rejoice the fact that you’re a Jew, one of G-d’s chosen people.

Have a dancing Yomtov,
Gut Yomtov

Rabbi Yosef Katzman