AN ENDING, AND A BEGINNING

After watching the debates last night, I had to decide what kind of post to write. Political? Naw, everyone will be doing that today. Cats? Nope, did that this week already. Well, there’s always religion or poetry. Both are likely to bore some people, but religion may actually enlighten you... if it doesn’t piss you off first.

Religion it is.

This Friday morning we completed the annual cycle of Torah readings, finishing the last portion of D’varim (Deuteronomy) and immediately starting with the Creation story of B’reishit (Genesis). It’s a special occasion, this holiday of Simchat Torah, and it’s a time of genuine merriment. It is, for example, one of the few occasions on which drinking (by responsible adults, naturally) during the service is actually encouraged. And, since it is a Jewish holiday, there are a couple of bittersweet aspects to it as well.

Bittersweet aspect number one is that, after a month that is packed with holidays - Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and finally Simchat Torah - we hit a sort of dry spell, with nothing on the calendar until the minor holiday of Chanukah begins the evening of December 7. Bittersweet aspect number two is the scriptural reading itself, which includes the story of the death of Moses atop Mount Nebo.

There are few passages in the Torah that affect me as do these last lines of D’varim. The image of Moses ascending Mount Nebo to look out over a Promised Land that he will never live to enter always brings a catch to my throat. Who among us doesn’t know the pain of having a dream and knowing it will never be realized? Who among us cannot empathize with Moses and understand his joy at knowing that his people would finally enter the Promised Land... but without him? Bittersweet? You betcha.

And the Lord said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross over to there.”
[...]
So Moses, servant of the Lord, died there, in the land of Moab... and no one knows his burial place to this day... Never again has there arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord had known face-to-face…

It’s just words on a screen here. To appreciate its beauty and power, you have to hear it chanted in the original Hebrew.

The mood changes dramatically as we finish reading Deuteronomy from the first scroll and switch to a second scroll for the beginning of Genesis. [Using two scrolls is simply a matter of practicality. It eliminates the need to wind a single scroll from the very end to the very beginning, a lengthy and tedious process.] Now, as we read the story of Creation, beginning “in the beginning” and continuing through the seventh day – the day on which God rested - the mood is considerably lighter.

And well it should be, by now. During a typical Sabbath service, seven or more people are honored by being called up to recite blessings as each portion of the day’s reading is chanted. There’s no special fanfare – you just go up and do it. But on this day, everyone who wishes to come up for an aliyah (literally, “going up”) is given the opportunity. To accommodate all these extra honors, we read the first few portions over and over again. And we celebrate each one with a shot of strong drink. And I don’t mean Manischewitz, bub.

The trick is to celebrate without getting too sloppy. Not always easy for those of us who are trying to run the service, since we tend to get roped into having a few more shots than absolutely necessary. Somehow, though, we manage. Hic.

But that Creation story is familiar to us all, and its theme of renewal is so appropriate for this time of year. We’ve just finished turning over our new leaves, so to speak, on the Day of Atonement less than two weeks ago... and now it’s fall, and the leaves are turning.

OK, that’s enough philosophizing. I have a nice tumbler with a couple fingers of Chartreuse waiting for me in the bedroom and it’s calling my name.

[Or is that She Who Must Be Obeyed?]