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CAN WE REJOICE IN THE TORAH?
As some of you know, I have recently moved into a part of Londpn
which is in one respect unlike all other places on earth except a very
few such as Williamsburg, New York, and Mean Shearim, Jerusalem: it is
inhabited by a conspicfious number of Chasidim, and Cbasidim are nothing
if not conspicuous.
They are easily recognised by their full beards,
their long méggggs and their broad-rimmed hats as well as by their
seeming obliviousness to their environment, with just a hint of defiance.
As a matter of fact, they have become Egg? conspicuous of late through
the missionary zeal of their leading sect, the Lubavitcher movement,
which pours out a ceaseless stream of propaganda from its New York
headquarters. Its activities are not, indeed, altogether to éur
liking as Liberal Jews. The publications it issues are naive to the
point of puerility.
Its poLitical activities are reactionary, as in
the present campaign against a recent amendment to the Law of Return.
And the way its devotees importune you at the Western Wall, if you
.stand there without Tefillin, is a public nuisance. But theée things,
however distasteful, should not blind us to the virtues of the chasidim.
They are certainly sincere and dedicated, afidtheir zeal is inapired by
a true love for the Torah and for their fellow—Jews rather than
by
hdstility towards those who do not share their beliefs.
Above all,
they exemplify religious joy at its most genuine and intense, anfl never
more so than on Simchat Torah, which has become especially associated
with them because of the colourfulness and the unbridled ecstasy with
which, on that day, they prance and dance with their Scrolls of the
Law.
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What; a
contrast between that and the attitude towards this
festival which has generally characterised Liberal Jews in the past:
émhas
been, to be frank, an ambivalent attitude.
For one thing, until
a few years ago, we made little pretence of following the annual cycle
of Torah readings, so that we lacked the principal motive which caused
this festival to evolve in the Middle Ages.
very word Torah caused us misgivings.
For
For another thing, the
it;
was associated, as it
seemed to us, with so many beliefs which we had rejected, that we
could hardly pronounce
it:
without feeling they; we were being less than
honest, especially the belief that; it Contained the very words of God,
revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. And for the same reason, to carry
Scrolls of the Law in procession seemed to be giving to the Pentateuch
A, dwumnlmjlm
u.
a pre—eminence over the rest of the Bible which, it did not merit.
hump
No wonder then
that:
least, half-hearted.
our attitude to Simchab Torah was, to say the
It was something of an embarrassment; to us.
Claude Montefiore, in his Outlines
mention it.
referred to
g Liberal Judaism,
Israel Mattuck, in The Essentials
31;
did not even
Liberal Judaism,
in two sentences as a custom practised in Orthodox
Synagogues. EVen the volume of "Services for Passover, Pentecost and
Tabernacles" which be compiled made no explicit reference to Simchat
it;
Torah, although
included what was called an "Alternative Service
for the Last: Day of Tabernacles" which provided: for a possible
it:
procession with scrolls and the singing of §is_u v'simhbu b'simchat
which, however, was rendered into English: "Rejoice and be glad
in the Law. "
M,
v
-5—
Things have changed quite a bit since those days, and I hope it
is no longer necessary to justify the changes. Most of us, I think,
take it for granted that Simchat Torah is a legitimate festival in
our calendar, which may even be mentioned by name, and that the
processions are one of its chief features.
And yet we still find
it difficult to achieve anything remotely resembling the kind of
rapturous abandon which charactarises the celebration of this festival
among the Cbasidim.
To some extent, of course, this is due to the
sociological fact that, by and large, we represent the most anglicised
section of the synagogue-affiliated in our community, so that we
have ingrained in us the dogma of British etiquette that it isn't
done to admit to, let alone to exhibit, anything much in the way of
emotion.
But that isn't the whole of the explanation.
There also
still lmngers on in our minds a certain aloofness from the world of
thought and feeling which the word Torah represents to us, as though
we could not utter the word without mental reservation, and therefore
without an inward act of dissociation.
The question I wantto ask this morning is whether that is really‘
necessary, and the answer I want to submit is that it is not, or that
it shoumnn't be; that the time has come, if it isn't long past, when
we can afford to let our former frozen feelings thaw.
or course the Torah doesn't mean to us what it means to the
Orthodox Jew.
does not, for us, contain the igsissima Egggg,
the very words, of God. It is not a once-for-all, complete and
perfect, revelation of the divine will, supernaturally communicated
to
It
our forefathers at one world-shaking moment.
It is, rather, the
record of the snuggles and strivings of our ancestors, in
the course
of many centuries; to emancipate themsdyes from paganism, to discover
.‘v_,.
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the true God, to interpret their history in the light of his guidance,
to understand his will, and to build a system of law, expressive of that
will, which was to regulate the daily life of the people.
These
étruggles and strivings were sometimes more and sometimes less successful;
but they were always nobly motivated; they raised the spiritual level of
the Jewish people to heights unequalled in the ancient world; and in so
far as they fell short, the task was continued by subsequent generations
of Jews, and continues still.
To us the Torah, as contained in the Five
Books of Moses, was only the beginning of a process.
But what a beginning:
A beginning so tremendous that there is virtually no limit to the pride
and joy which we may justifiably feel as the recipients of such a
heritage.
There was a time when this liberal view of the Torah was bold and
daring, avant-garde and revolutionary and when, consequently, it was
considefed eccentric if not blasphemous by the traditionalists. Inevitably, therefore, those who held it felt a little insecure in doing so.
However sure we may have been intellectually, and however hard we may
have tried to persuade ourselves that we were in step and everybody else
out of step, emotionally we couldn't quite rid ouselves of the feeling
that we were at odds with the majority and that, in some mysterious
way,
the majority view remained obstinately the authentic or the normative
one. We knew that we were right, but we couldn't help feeling a little
naughty in saying so.
That is why we couldn't observe Simchat Torah
without the kind of inner conflict which was bound to inhibit us from
entering fully into its spirit.
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But those days, I hope, are now over.
Today not one Jew in ten
adheres seriously to the traditional view of the Pantateucb as divinely
dictpted at flaunt Sinai.
The great majority know that we are right, and
are divided only 3:)those who wao and those who do not admit it.
It is
those who know it but don't admit it who may well have difficulties with
Simchat Torah.
They are the pseudo-Orthodox who make up the bulk of the
membership of the United Synagogue.
For they have been brought up to
believe, and have not yet emancipated themselves from the belief, that
the Torah is perfect; yet they know that it is not.
They know that it
contains stories which are dubiously historical, and laws which are by
modern standards primitive. For them, therefore, the Torah constantly
fails to live up to the expectations which they have been taught to
entertain of it. They listen to their rabbis trying to harmonise ta
discrepancies and to explain away the difficulties, but they are less
And so, when they circumambulate on Simchat Torah,
carrying the Scrolls of the Law, bowing to them, touching them with their
than half convinced.
Tzitzit, and kissing them, they are performing a ritual which has for
them an element of make-believe, expressing a traditional adulation for
the Torah which no longer corresponds with their inner HEXXEIHX feelings.
It is not, therefore, surprising that in the synagogues of the United
Synagogue the celebration of Simchat Torah lacks the spfintaneity and
sincere joyfulness of the Chasidic stiebl.
But that should not apply to us. We
gag emancipated from the
traditional view. We do not expect from the Torah any qualities which
it does not possess. If somebody were to say to us, as we narry
our
Scrolls round the Synagmgue, "But don't you know that the Torah
is not
perfect?", we should say, "Ofcourse we know; so what?" It would be
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like being told, "But don't you knpw that the earth is round and not
flat?"
We should answer: "Of course we know, but we love it all the
same."
The Torah, to us, is not perfect.
is good enough.
But it is magnificent, and that
It is particularly magnificent considermng the ancient
and primitive world from which it comes, and that makes it more than
good enough.
Those who are neither truly Orthodox nor truly Liberal
may find it difficult to give themselves unreservedly to the celebration
.
of Simchat morab because they don't quite know what to make of the
Torah.
But the Chasidim know what to make of it, and we know what to
make of it.
To the Chasidim it contains the oracles of God; to us it
contains the mighty achievements of our ancestors in their search for
Both of us, therefore, can rejoice on Simchau Torah without
mental reservation and without emotional inhibition. The longbearded Chasidim of Meah Shearim and Williamsburg, of
Stamford
Hill and Golders Green, may seem‘strange and exotic to us; but we do
God.
mm
have this in common with them, that they know where they stand and
we know where we stand. Both of us, therefore, can say with complete
sincerity and with unqualified joy: Sisu v'simchu b'simcbab torah,
not indeed meaning quite the same thing, but meaning it wholeheartedly.