This Simchas Torah is not a new challenge.
Every orphaned child wonders if it is appropriate to celebrate a birthday without their mother or father by their side.
Every widow hesitates before going out on a date or having too much fun.
Every bereaved parent sees their lost child in the accomplishments of the living, and wonders what their child would be up to if he or she were still alive.
And it’s not just death that intrudes on the times of joy; sometimes it’s guilt that prevents us from happiness.
Our Sages in Bereishis Rabbah teach us that after eating from the Tree of Knowledge and being kicked out of the Garden of Eden, Adam abstained from being together with his wife for hundreds of years. How can I taste any pleasure if I am such a terrible person? How can I experience that lofty emotion called love? Instead, I’ll build walls to the heavens and not allow myself to be loved.
Hazorim b’dimah b’rinah. We stumble through life with a confused mix of tears and joy, of guilt and pride, of sadness and happiness.
Some have suggested that we experience our sorrow and joy simultaneously. I believe that’s a mistake.
The Zohar describes the worst type of hell as the Kaf Hakeleh. A Kaf Hakeleh is a slingshot. The Zohar explains that the soul is flung from one side of the earth to the other, from cold to heat, from dark to light, and the soul has no rest. To be in a perpetual state of impermanence, to constantly have conflicting emotions intrude and upend whatever you are experiencing, is not life. It is hell.
G-d does not want us to experience hell on earth.
And so He gave us a Torah that helps guide us through this confusing mess. As Rav Yehuda HaLevi explains, G-d gave us a varied calendar to give full expression of all our conflicting emotions. He gave us days to cry; Yahrtzeits, Tisha B’avs. And it gives us days to rejoice; Sukkos, Purim. The Torah even teaches us what to do when these two days conflict. When a Yahrtzeit of a loved one falls out on a holiday, the joy of the holidays supersedes the sadness of the Yahrtzeit.
This is the primary function of the Torah; to help us navigate life, to distinguish between the holy an the mundane and the varying emotional states.
Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta, in her wonderful book, Option B, describes the aftermath of her husband’s sudden death. She describes loss as a door closing. “When one door closes, another opens; but,” she adds, “often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
In the words of King Solomon, there is a time to cry and there is a time to dance. And it’s critical to know which time is which; to know when it’s time to turn away from the sadness and focus on the good.
This is not done to ignore the sadness, on the contrary. What Shlomo Hamelech is teaching us to do is to fully mourn – take the time to cry seriously. Because when we fully mourn, we are given the power to fully rejoice.
Rav Yisrael Meir Lau in his autobiography describes a young survivor of the Holocaust who one day heard a lecture that brought him to tears. This young boy turned to the man who made him cry and said the following: “When the [Nazis] took my father and mother, my eyes were dry. When they beat me mercilessly with their clubs, I bit my lips, but I did not cry. I have not cried for years. Nor have I laughed. We starved, froze, and bled, but we did not cry.” This young man thought he had a stone for a heart. “(But) just now,” he said, “I cried freely. And I say to you, that whoever can cry today, can laugh tomorrow…”
That same Medrash I referenced a moment ago, tells us that Adam, at one point, realized that he was mistaken. Yes, he sinned. But he was also a good person. There’s a time for regret and for remorse, and so he spent time repenting. But there is a time to move forward and so he then reconciled with his wife. The Medrash concludes that his relationship with her, his love for her, was so much stronger that it was before. When we give ourselves the space to cry, to mourn, to grieve, we open up the doors for joy and for love.
Sometimes we are unable to separate the joy from the sadness into distinct days. For example, how can we rejoice at our child’s wedding without remembering our loved ones who are no longer with us or the suffering of the world-at-large? And so we carve out a moment within that day of joy; we take a moment to break the glass and to sing a song of longing. And then we dance and sing.
Or how can we eat festive meals on Yom Tov when we are overwhelmed with memories of our Bubbies and Zaidies and our mothers and fathers? And so we carve a moment within the festival to say Yizkor, to acknowledge them, and the void we are left with. And then we rejoice throughout the holiday.
And that is exactly what we will do this Simchas Torah.
We will make a space for our tears – you should have received a card by now with the names of those who were murdered on October 7th and I invite all of you who normally step outside for Yizkor to stay inside a little longer. To say the names of the men and women on your card because today, because right now, in this moment, we are all mourning.
We will make a space for our tears by glancing at the Bima cover with the names of those murdered on October 7th and the Torah cover dedicated to Eliyahu Michael Harush.
We will make a space for our tears by dedicating the first and last Hakafah to those whose Yahrtzeit will forever be tied up to this day.
And then, having made a space for our tears and for our sorrow, we will dance and we will sing and we will rejoice. We will not ignore the many doors that have closed on this day, we will look at them, we will reflect on them, and we will cry for them. Having given them their space, we will then rejoice. Eis lispod v’eis lirkod.
The truth is, the joy that we are to experience on this holiday is in some ways even greater than any year prior. Allow me to share with you a story that I hope will make this point clear. It’s the story of Shaylee Atary and her husband, Yahav, from the newly published, a Day in October (Koren). Shaylee and Yahav both experienced terrible trauma in their early lives. They both thought that they would never be able to love or be loved. But they taught themselves to cry. And by crying they taught themselves to once again live and love. Their walls of self-protection eventually came crashing down, and they got married.
A little while after their wedding, Yahav and Shaylee moved to Kfar Aza. Shaylee was disabled and the Kibbutz was fully accessible. It was peaceful, serene, and the perfect place for these two souls to heal and start a family. And so it was; in September of 2023, they had a baby girl, who was beloved by the entire close-knit Kibbutz.
One year ago, today, at 6:30 AM, they were awakened by the Red Alert sirens. They both rushed to their shelter and closed the door behind them. They soon realized that the Kibbutz had been infiltrated. First via text messages, but within a few moments, they heard the terrorists’ voices.
They tried to lock the door and window of their shelter, but it was an old building, and the lock didn’t work. Yahav whispered to his wife, “I’ll get the door; you get the baby.”
Suddenly a hand reached through their window. Yahav grabbed the hand and started shoving the terrorist away. He looked back at his wife and again, “I have the door; you have the baby.”
Shaylee bolted out the door and ran to safety.
She almost didn’t make it; she was chased, she was shot at, the baby almost suffocated, but Shaylee and the baby survived. Yahav was killed holding the door.
To quote Shaylee: “We had an agreement, Yahav and I… We each had our job. And that’s still what’s going on. He’s still holding the door. He’ll be holding the door for the rest of my life. And I’ve still got the baby. And as long as I’m here with the baby, I’ll never let my light go out… I saw him sacrifice his life for mine. … So I’m keeping our agreement. And that agreement is what keeps me alive.”
One year ago today, over 1200 of our brothers and sisters were killed. They were holding the door for us. They may not have known it. But they were the first line of defense, protecting the land and people of Israel. Hamas tried on this very day to stamp out the Jewish People, but those holy people held the door.
We, the survivors, are left holding the baby.
When we take the Torah out of the Aron tonight and tomorrow and lovingly dance with it, we are holding the baby for those who held the door.
When we throw the children in the air and dance with them at the center of the circle, letting them know how precious they are and the magnificent role they have to play in history, we are holding the baby for those who held the door.
When we commit ourselves to living a passionate life of Torah and Mitzvos, not just today and tomorrow, but going forward, ensuring that their sacrifice was not in vain, we are holding the baby for those who held the door.
Yes, we will make space to cry for our own loved ones who held the door for us through their many sacrifices, and for the holy 1200 souls who held the door for us on this day. We will allow ourselves to fully mourn. We will make space for our tears and our sorrow.
But we cannot simply go on like usual. Not after all they sacrificed for us.
Instead, we will dance, we will sing, and we will commit to the most passionate, spirited, proud Jewish life. We will treasure and forever hold the precious baby.
With thanks to Rabbi Avi Goldstein for the brilliant tie-in.