When I think back to the Jewish holidays of my childhood, Sukkot and Simchat Torah stand out as two of the most fun days of the entire year. My hometown rabbi used to say that we needed them after the heaviness and intensity of the High Holy Days. After all that introspection, repentance, and soul-searching, Judaism seems to say: Now it’s time to celebrate.

For me, these holidays have always been about sweetness. When I was a child, we would even receive a little bag of candy as we left the Temple, a simple reminder that Judaism, Torah, community, and life itself are meant to contain sweetness.

Sukkot brings us outside, into the beauty of the fall harvest and the memory of our ancestors wandering through the wilderness. We leave the security of our homes and enter the fragile walls of the sukkah, reminding ourselves how temporary so much of what we possess really is. What do we truly need to feel secure? Sukkot teaches us that perhaps our greatest blessings are not the things that surround us, but the people who do. It is a holiday of gratitude for the natural world, for the food that sustains us, for those we love, and for the opportunity to welcome the stranger and invite guests into our lives.

And then comes Simchat Torah, when that sweetness turns into pure joy.

There is nothing quite like taking all of our Torah scrolls from the ark and dancing with them around the sanctuary to the sounds of klezmer-style music. We celebrate reaching the end of Deuteronomy and immediately beginning again with Genesis. We finish the Torah, and then we start all over. Perhaps that is one of Judaism’s most beautiful lessons: there is always more to learn, another beginning to make, another opportunity to see something familiar with new eyes.

At TRS, Simchat Torah is especially meaningful because we welcome and bless our newest Religious School students as they begin their Jewish education. As we open a Torah scroll completely around the sanctuary, surrounding our children with its words, we symbolically place them inside the continuing story of our people. And amid our celebration, we also pause for Yizkor, remembering those who came before us and whose lives and teachings remain part of our own.

If you have never joined us for Simchat Torah, come celebrate with us a week from Friday. Come dance with the Torahs. Come help us hold the scroll as it stretches around our sanctuary and around our children. Come hear the final words of Deuteronomy followed immediately by the opening words of Genesis.

After the solemnity of the High Holy Days, Sukkot and Simchat Torah remind us that our Jewish journey is not only about reflection and repentance. It is also about gratitude, community, celebration, new beginnings, and sweetness.

Chag Sameach to all of you as we begin the festival of Sukkot this Friday evening. May these days remind us of the sweetness that surrounds us and inspire us to share that sweetness with others.

Cantor Michael Shochet