The Mitzvah to Persevere

We all know intellectually that life is fragile and can change in an instant. Yet most of us (dare I say all of us?) live our lives day to day without that realization front and center in our minds. Perhaps this is for the best. Thinking about the frailty of life all the time would be depressing and cause debilitating anxiety leaving us unable to function, let alone have the energy and drive to build and to dream and to rejoice.

For Simchat Torah I had prepared a shiur about “Spitting in Jewish Tradition”. It was inspired by the ugly news reports I had read about Jews spitting at Christians during the Tabernacle (aka Sukkot) holiday in the Old City of Jerusalem. When I was preparing the shiur and printing source sheets on Friday, that news item was one of the bigger ones coming out of Israel.

How things have changed since then. I still feel at a loss of words to process or mourn for the horrible events of last Shabbat/ Shemini Atzeret in Israel: the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. But we must find words: words of support and solidarity, words of Tehillim and Tefilah and Torah, words of encouragement, words of care and concern and words of commitments and contributions.

The question that every Rabbi in every American shul had last Shabbat afternoon was: what should our Simchat Torah look like? The following are some of the ideas I shared last Saturday night, between Mincha and Maariv, just before the onset of Simchat Torah. I said that to celebrate Simchat Torah as if nothing happened was not possible. It would be callous and a violation of our sacred obligation of Areivut and a rejection of our shared identity with our brothers and sisters in Israel. On the same time I felt that cancelling Simchat Torah altogether was also not the right response. First of all, there is a practical consideration. If we would cancel Simchat Torah- what would most people do instead? Second of all, most of our Simchat Torah activities were centered around and directed to children. Jewish law guides us to be careful with how we expose children to mourning practices. I felt that we needed to have a Simchat Torah celebration, at the very least for the children of our community, but that even the children should see that our celebration is not as usual and that something is wrong- without going into any horrible details.

And so I suggested that we have an intentional and purposeful Simchat Torah; one without frivolity but with purpose. I noted that we would sing songs on Simchat Torah for three reasons. First, our songs would be songs of prayer. Second, our songs would be songs of solidarity. Last, our songs would be songs of strength and resilience.

I found both Simchat Torah night and day to be uplifting and meaningful. I think back to last Shabbat and  Sunday as an exercise in resilience. The first mitzvah in the Torah is “Peru Urevu”- “Be Fruitful and Multiply” While Peru means to have progeny the word “Revu” is more difficult to precisely translate. Perhaps Peru Urevu is commanding us to be fruitful- and be resilient. It’s not enough to exist or to survive. We must be demonstrate resilience in order to persevere in the face of challenges in order maximize our experiences and our purpose during our lifetimes.