The Faith to Be Held: Some Thoughts for Simchat Torah

The Faith to Be Held: Some Thoughts for Simchat Torah

By Dr. Bella Tendler Krieger, Director of CAJE’s 

Center for Jewish Ideas and Engagement

I am experiencing such a panoply of emotions as we approach Simchat Torah this year: sadness, despair, and rage, at the memories of last year’s Simchat Torah massacre, but also giddy triumph, hope, and faith.

I feel differently than I did a week ago. The death of Yahya Sinwar changed everything.

The way it happened was so fortuitous - some would say miraculous- at the hands of a training unit, who had no idea they had eliminated Israel’s enemy number one!

They say we should not celebrate the downfall of our enemies, but Sinwar’s death brought about a great sense of relief. Not just because the mastermind of October 7th had finally met his end, but also because of the serendipitous way it came to pass.

After a year of intense effort and extraordinary feats of intelligence on behalf of the Israeli military, Sinwar’s demise came about by chance - or perhaps by God.

This realization gives us permission to breathe, to relax our muscles from the perpetual clench we have held this past year as we strove to grit our way through this terrible war.

The Bible portion we will read this Simchat Torah, the first anniversary of our latest brush with vulnerability, proclaims God as the One who “rides the sky to help (us) above the clouds in His majesty” (Deut 33:26).

God pulls the strings behind the curtain, where we cannot see His interventions on our behalf until lo! we are saved.

The verse continues, “The eternal God is a refuge, and underneath are His everlasting arms. He drives out (our) enemies with the word: destroy!” (Deut 33:27).

Secure in the cradle of God’s tireless embrace, we can calm down.

We don’t need to solve our problems alone. God can unravel our messiest predicaments with a command.

He can defeat our enemies with a single word.

This realization is the essence of faith, Emunah, which literally means to feel as though we are being held “as a nursemaid (omen) carries an infant” (Num 11:12).

If we are being held in God’s arms, we can relax and know that someone is looking out for our interests.

This does not mean that we can expect to see justice served, or our goals achieved.

Sometimes, all the striving in the world comes to naught. This lesson is also part of the Simchat Torah reading.

In the final chapter of the Torah, which we read on this day, God commands Moses to climb Mount Nebo and look out at the Promised Land.

It is so close, he can see it all.

View from Mount Nebo to the valley between Israel and Jordan.

But just as his eyes are having their fill, God informs Moses “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there” (Deut 34:4).

Moses is so close to his goal that he can literally see it!

But God tells him that he will never enter the Promised Land.

Despite his lifelong dedication to this cause, he will die in the desert, a few steps from the realization of his dream.

This is one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in Torah, and indeed, this is how the Torah ends, with Moses’ death, the finish line visible, but just out of reach.

This is not by chance.

The Torah could have ended with the book of Joshua.

The Torah, which spans creation, God’s promise of the Land to the forefathers, slavery and redemption from Egypt, the revelation at Sinai, and the forty-year trek through the desert, could have ended with the Israelites’ triumphant conquest of the Land under Joshua.

But it doesn’t. It ends with Moses’ death at the border of the Promised Land. The mission: unaccomplished.

I think this too is a lesson of faith. We may not see our objectives realized.

Like Moses, we may die before our hopes and dreams come to fruition. This is also ok.

The banner will be raised by someone else, and the fight will continue.

This should not cause despair but give us faith in the long span of history and in the God who persists through that history.

Our work is not limited to our short lifespans. There is dignity in dedicating oneself to a cause we may never see fulfilled.

In fact, this was Moses’ destiny and how our most sacred text ends.

As I think about the intractable political situation in Israel, this too, gives me comfort.

While we are still at war, and while a peaceful resolution to the conflict seems impossibly out of reach, I have faith that it will one day be resolved.

I will not despair but gird myself for my small role in this saga.

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