Simhat Torah Message 5780

Simhat Torah Message 5780

Friday, October 18, 2019 Author: Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

How would you like to make $18,000

Are you a female between the ages of 24-55? One last question, sprechen sie Deutsch? Assuming you have all these conditions pegged, you are in luck, that is if you are incredibly passionate about one thing. 

Nothing.

This job in Germany literally pays you to lie in bed, all-day, every day, for two months, testing mattresses to see how the body responds to weightlessness. I know what you're thinking, No vacation days? But seriously, the job sounds pretty sweet, doesn't it? A dream job. Literally.

There is a funny thing about Simhat Torah. This holiday isn't actually IN the Torah. Not at all, not a single mention. It actually is an add on holiday of sorts. Originally the holiday was Shemini Asseret, a separate holiday to Sukkot. After spending seven days on Sukkot bringing Korbanot, or sacrifices, for each of the seventy nations, Hashem says to the Jewish people, "Stay behind for one more day, just you and I". The holiday celebrates the unique bond between Hashem and His people. Asseret, therefore, means to stay back.

Around the end of the second Temple, the ancient custom of reading from the Torah was streamlined so that we would finish the entire Torah reading each year. The completion of the entire Torah reading at the postscript of the Sukkot holiday is more than just a coincidental dovetailing. It speaks to the essence of the holiday it conjoins. If Sukkot is the Hag HeAsif, the Holiday of In Gathering, a time where the fruits of the entire agricultural cycle are realized, then Simhat Torah is the synonymous celebration of the in gathering of a different kind of crop, where the fruits of the entire biblical cycle are realized. The reason the Rabbis gave us this new holiday on the same day as the old one was to teach us that in both scenarios what we are rejoicing over are the benefits that only sustained, committed, hard work can bring.

Back to that dream job. Yes, you got paid. The pro is that you did nothing! The con though is also that you did nothing!
We all love to relax and take it easy. However, Hashem wants more from us. We really want more from ourselves as well, though we sometimes forget it. The Torah was given to us for just that purpose. All year long we are given a new set of challenges in the form of the perasha that we read. Week in and week out the messages we learn through the perasha push us and drive us to always try and do more, be better and strive higher. On Simhat Torah, at the culmination of all of the work we did throughout the year, we do not just keep the missvot Hashem gave us, we celebrate them. We dance with our Divine Instruction Manuals and feel gratitude to have been chosen to fulfill a great and important destiny. 

Lying in bed is simply not in the cards. Around and around we go, seven times on Simhat Torah, mimicking the march around the walls of Yericho, where on the seventh time around the walls fell before the Jewish people. Perhaps that is the reason why we follow the example of Yericho, to illustrate that Torah and G-d's work can only be acquired by going through the hard work time after time, even though you think you've already been here and covered this ground. 

So each year and each week we read the perasha again, looking for its messages this time around, so that when Simhat Torah comes we have something new we have gained, something we have planted in our hearts, watered and nurtured into something beautiful to celebrate, a new missvah, a new class we are attending, or even some internal victory in improving a character trait.

The Mishna in Pirkei Abot (5:22) teaches us,

Turn it over and turn it over for all is in it!

The Mishna is conveying that it is worth turning the Torah over and over, just as one might turn the earth to reveal the nutrient-rich soil underneath, "for all is in it", i.e. the Torah. But perhaps, if we dig deeper, pardon the pun, the intention here is something else. Maybe the Mishna means that we should be the person that is constantly turning over the ground of Torah, "for all is in it", i.e. the hard work of turning the earth again and again, never giving up, relaxing and just going to bed. 
We, as human beings were not designed to do nothing. Hard work is good and good for you. Whatever you are doing in life give it your absolute everything!

Can you guess who is offering that "dream job"? Yup, it's NASA, which ironically makes sense, because here, as in life, the choice is simple: do nothing and go nowhere, or work hard and reach the stars!

Hag Sameah, Tizku Leshanim Rabot!
Rabbi Shlomo Farhi