{"id":9713,"date":"2012-10-05T10:30:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T14:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/?p=9713"},"modified":"2013-05-10T15:15:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T19:15:38","slug":"october-14-2011-simchat-torah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/","title":{"rendered":" Simchat Torah"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- http:\/\/www-tc.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/rss\/media\/video\/episode.1507.simchat.torah.m4v --><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>RABBI DAVID SHNEYER<\/strong> (Spiritual Leader, Kehila Chadasha and Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Center of Greater Washington): Simchat Torah means \u201crejoicing with the Torah.\u201d The Torah refers to the scroll of the Torah, which contains the five books of Moses. The day of Simchat Torah is a day that was created by our sages and also by the people over time; it\u2019s not mentioned in the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>It culminates the whole season of holidays that began with Rosh Hashanah. We\u2019re in the month of Tishrei. That\u2019s the seventh month on the Jewish calendar.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the joy of Simchat Torah is being playful with the service. We\u2019ve been doing some pretty heavy stuff throughout the month of Tishrei, and so this is time to kind of really let go a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>One of the major features of the service is the taking the scrolls out from the <em>Aron Hakodesh<\/em>, from the Ark, and we do what are called <em>hakafot<\/em>, encirclements. We circle around the room seven times. We often have flags. What we do and other congregations around the country, and also around the world, will often take their <em>hakafot<\/em> into the streets. It is celebrated in a very joyful way, and with much singing and dancing, and we\u2019re out there in the street dancing for, oh, twenty, thirty minutes. It\u2019s an expression of the love for our Torah, our teachings. It\u2019s also a great way to begin the New Year.<\/p>\n<p>A special feature of the holiday is that we conclude the reading of the Bible, the end of Deuteronomy, and we begin again by reading from Genesis. There\u2019s this wonderful ceremony where we kind of link the two like a wedding, a marriage of the two, and it\u2019s like the end of the scroll and the beginning of the scroll are being wedded, and the teaching is that learning and Torah is a continuous process. There really is no end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an expression of the love for our Torah, our teachings. It\u2019s also a great way to begin the New Year,\u201d says Rabbi David Shneyer, spiritual leader of Kehila Chadasha and the Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Center of Greater Washington. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\" class=\"more\">More <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":17508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6569],"tags":[1965,17918,6304,10110,1329],"class_list":["post-9713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videocast","tag-bible","tag-jewish","tag-jewish-high-holidays","tag-simchat-torah","tag-torah","topics-belief-and-practice","faith-jewish"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>October 14, 2011 ~ Simchat Torah | October 5, 2012 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cIt\u2019s an expression of the love for our Torah, our teachings. It\u2019s also a great way to begin the New Year,\u201d says Rabbi David Shneyer, spiritual leader of Kehila Chadasha and the Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Center of Greater Washington.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"October 14, 2011 ~ Simchat Torah | October 5, 2012 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cIt\u2019s an expression of the love for our Torah, our teachings. It\u2019s also a great way to begin the New Year,\u201d says Rabbi David Shneyer, spiritual leader of Kehila Chadasha and the Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Center of Greater Washington.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PBS.ReligionEthics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-05T14:30:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-05-10T19:15:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/10\/thumb01-simchattorah.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"100\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Yi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionEthics\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ReligionEthics\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Yi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Fred Yi\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0576fe5f06986bc0418635994a2bcd47\"},\"headline\":\"Simchat Torah\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-05T14:30:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-10T19:15:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\"},\"wordCount\":334,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/10\/thumb01-simchattorah.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Bible\",\"Jewish\",\"Jewish High Holidays\",\"Simchat Torah\",\"Torah\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Videocast\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/\",\"name\":\"October 14, 2011 ~ Simchat Torah | October 5, 2012 | Religion &amp; Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/2012\/10\/05\/october-14-2011-simchat-torah\/9713\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/files\/2011\/10\/thumb01-simchattorah.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-10-05T14:30:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-05-10T19:15:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0576fe5f06986bc0418635994a2bcd47\"},\"description\":\"\u201cIt\u2019s an expression of the love for our Torah, our teachings. 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