she asani isha ve lo ish

avi ! 21y old jew from an interfaith family / undergraduate / leftist / not strictly movement affiliated / interested in halakhic literacy and theory / currently at a reconstructionist shul / bisexual / learning biblical hebrew, yiddish, levantine arabic & modern hebrew.

[considdured]

x

[dragonhorde]

JOIN MY UNDEAD ARMY and let's be friends! twitch.tv/liliannabest goes live in 12 minutes

[dragonhorde]

Today's Stream is brought to you by Trans Women! Trans Women: When you gotta consciously choose to girl. twitch.tv/liliannabest goes live in 10 minutes with a daily dose of Civilization VI to help you start or end your day in a peaceful and calm mood.

[chalumot]

go watch my bff stream if you like video games xoxo

[cardamompods]

a chassidic tale- a young boy woke up every morning hours before he needed to be awake just to go into the woods before school. when he got home, his mother would ask him what he was doing awake so early again. he told her “i go into the woods to talk to Gd”, to which she replied “you don’t need to go to the woods for that. you know Gd is the same everywhere, right?” and the little boy said “i know. but i’m not.”

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

Twitter: It’s violating our terms to wish death on Trump.

Jews:

[gefiltebitch]

really resonating with Avinu Malkeinu moreso than I ever have in a previous year. dare I say there has never been a better time to kin Rabbi Akiva, fasting and then scaling a mountain to plead with god (in a more intimate and familial way than was previously common in liturgy) for rain in the midst of an unrelenting drought. 

[lekh-lekha]

During Yamim Noraim

HaSatan: Here is a list with everything wrong Israel has done this year.

G-d:

[hamath]

I CAN’T GET OVER THIS!!!!!!

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

The fucking “jokes” and/or xenophobic condemnation and apathy coming from social media about the coronavirus outbreak in China are absolutely fucking disgusting and needed to stop yesterday. If you live in the West chances are very much you’re not going to get sick and even less so that you’re going to fucking die. Don’t fucking make this about you like how you made the threat of genocidal war with Iran about you. Don’t even get me started on the vile racist bullshit that’s erupting with this outbreak too. It honestly fucking staggers me how easy it is for people in the West to dehumanize and mock and belittle non-Westerners in the face of tragedy and death. You all have grown so fucking complacent in to tragedy and horror when it’s happening “over there” it’s like it isn’t even fucking real to you anymore. Images of black and brown and Asian faces suffering and dying are so abstract to us it’s horrendous. I truly fucking hope this virus doesn’t become a bigger threat and you never have to experience what the people in Wuhan and Hubei are going through right now, even as people mock them with their racist memes and imperialist cruelty. Fuck all the way off and get some fucking empathy you absolute fucking pieces of shit.

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

So the solution to the afterlife on The Good Place is...Judaism?

Cool.

[greatspacerace]

this is too good to only leave as a short text post. I’m gonna need the whole essay behind this to hang up on my wall.

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

So, this is TVGuide’s recap of the solution proposed to reform the afterlife: 

“as Eleanor puts it, the system treats life not as "a test that you either pass or fail but instead a class you take." The test comes in the afterlife, when a Good Place architect and a Bad Place architect team up to design a customized scenario that forces you to confront your moral flaws. The test can be anything — from being sent to a fake Good Place "by mistake" to reliving a version of your life — and its difficulty depends on the number of points you earned before death. Regardless of points, if you don't pass the test you're rebooted to take it again and again, with the hope that one day you'll learn enough to ace it and get into the Good Place.

"But wait," interrupts the version of Timothy Olyphant Janet conjured in her void, "how do you learn and grow if you're rebooted?" Thanks for asking, Tim. The trick is that after every reboot, you retain a vague memory of what you learned in your evaluation — like, in Eleanor's words, "a little voice in your head, helping you become a better version of yourself."”

Compare that this description of how the soul is cleansed in the afterlife in Judaism: 

“Gehinom [is not] a place for eternity, but a temporary—albeit terrible—place for the soul to be cleansed. In fact, the vast majority of souls do not stay in Gehinom for more than eleven months. Because we do not presume most people are so sinful as to warrant a twelve month sentence (reserved only for the wicked), the recital of Kaddish for a departed soul, which brings elevation to the soul and relief from Gehinom, is only recited for eleven months and thereafter only on the anniversary (Yartzeit) of death. On Shabbat all souls have an elevation. Souls in Gehinom are given relief, while those in the world of Yetzirah are allowed through the “Amud,” the pillar that connects the two worlds of Yetzirah and Beriah. After the purification of Gehinom, the soul enters the World to Come—the Garden of Eden—where it receives the rewards it earned through work in this world.”

Basically, the idea that the soul is put through a purification and cleansing in the afterlife before going on to its next destination is a Jewish concept (which makes sense because show creator Michael Schur is Jewish!). 

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

re: Anons talking about religion - Should someone tell them that religion being primarily about belief is pretty much only true of Western Christianity and mainstream branches of Islam? Like, no one at a Hindu temple's gonna be like "But do you BELIEVE in Hanuman-ji?" You just do your puja and move on. Same for most Buddhists, Europagans, Zoroastrians, you name it. I just like how aggressive anti-religion atheists don't realize their worldview is still entirely shaped by Christianity.

They always—ALWAYS—look at things with a Christian lens, even when they are supposedly forsaking Christianity. 

[vermiciousyid]

That’s part of why they feel a need to enlighten others: they need to win converts to their beliefs. Like Christians.

[kyidyl]

But…what deities don’t require belief? And if you didn’t believe in your religion’s god, why would you participate in that religion? Idk I’m confused by this.

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

JUDAISM. 

There are literally atheist rabbis. There are literally two branches of Judaism that are actually centred around the idea that deistic belief is unimportant to being Jewish. 

That’s what this whole post is about it. You “don’t get it” because you’re approaching the concept of what religion is from an entirely different viewpoint than how Jewish people approach Judaism. 

It’s like, say you have an object weighs twelve pounds. But then an astronaut tells you, “Oh, we’re going to bring this to the moon and it’s only going to weigh two pounds.” And you’re like “Um, excuse me? The object is twelve pounds. I’ve lived on earth my whole life, and I know how much this weighs, and it’s twelve pounds. You can’t just change the weight of an object, that’s not how mass works.” EXCEPT! If you bring something from earth to the moon, the yeah, that’s exactly how mass works! Because gravity on the moon is totally different than it is on earth, and things on the moon are 1/6 of their weight on earth. It’s a totally different framework! 

So like…right now, if Judaism is gravity on the moon, you’re approaching it like it’s gravity on earth. That’s why you’re confused. Your framework is totally wrong.

[animatedamerican]

It’s more like … the word religion is being used to describe two exceedingly different paradigms, and if the only referent you have for the word is the paradigm you grew up with and that paradigm stresses belief as the primary point, you’re going to be super confused when someone says something like “religions don’t have to be about belief.”

It’s like you think you know what a “book” is and how it works because you majored in English literature, and now you’re trying to identify the protagonist of a cookbook or the primary narrative arc of a thesaurus.

You think you know what a “religion” is and how it works, and you don’t.

(For the record, Judaism is far from the only religion that is considered by many of its adherents to not require any sort of theistic belief.)

[yourfriendlyneighborhoodrabbit]

Okay but like I’ve seen a lot of these posts going around lately and I see a lot of people who were raised outside of the Christian framework getting upset at people saying they don’t understand how you can be religious and not believe in a god. To take the moon example above, we were raised and had pounded into us that there is no other gravity and if you believe anywhere else has different gravity you’re going to hell, end of story. So respectfully, telling us that we’re being ignorant by not understanding your framework when we were raised to believe there is no other framework isn’t really helpful to solving our ignorance. As an athiest with an interest in spiritual things, please, explain to me about Jewish “gravity”, or Buddhist “gravity”, or non-mainstream Islam “gravity”, not in a challenging “I can out argue you” way, but a genuine, “I want to hear your experience” kind of way. I would love to understand how you can be religious without that dogged belief in an invisible man in the sky because that’s a lot of what I hated about mainstream Christianity, and I’d love to learn about a different framework that I’ve had no exposure to as a white middle class girl in suburban America. 

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

Sure, but there’s a huge difference between “That’s fascinating! Tell me more about your cultural outlook, because this is totally new to somebody with my background and I want to understand” and “What you’re saying about your culture is flawed or false because it doesn’t match what I know from mine.”

[jewish-privilege]

Number one (”oh cool tell me more!”) is informed by curiosity and a need to educate yourself so as to not be ignorant about different cultures and societies. Number two (”*scoff* but that’s not true because it doesn’t match what has happened in my life”) is informed by entitlement and a Christian-normative view of life where if it doesn’t match your life experience 1:1 then the person trying to educate you much be lying. 99.9% of the time, we get people espousing number two.

[glassheartedboy]

The Four Children

The Passover Haggadah speaks of four children: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask

The wise child asks: What form does the hatred of our people take? And you shall answer them: There they called us capitalists, here they call us communists. To some, we are Middle Eastern foreigners, to others, the whitest of white. We are miserly aristocracy and/or beggars on the street, we are whatever is convenient to hate. We are always on trial. We never know what for.

The wicked child asks: What have you done to deserve all of this hatred? And you will answer them: Being a people is no crime by any metric worth considering. And there is nothing more my birthright than refusing to bow down.

The simple child asks: What is this? And you shall answer them: We are so much more than a memory of history. We dance even as the glass shatters. We know pain as thick as honey and we know happiness as sweet, we are, and always remain, Solomon’s riddle and the answer to Samson’s. We stand as angels. We are no ghosts.

And for the child who does not know how to ask You will tell them: Look, my dear, this is your birthright. The wind howls softer than you. We have known so many unmarked graves, but still, we name the living. There is nothing to a home but a family and books and I swear to you, my child, that the Alef-Bet will form the words even when yours tongue stumbles.

@glassheartedboy

[a-la-belle-e-toile-deactivated2]

[thunderstruck9]

Tobia Rava (Italian, b. 1959), Vela di ascolta la luce [Sail to listen to the light], 2009. Sublimination on satin, 133 x 70 cm.

via a-la-belle-e-toile

[reflected-blue]

my mom has a plate with jumbled-up hebrew letters that we use on friday nights and it’s like a family treasure

she says it reminds her of tohu-va-vohu before creation and that’s why we use it for shabbat

[progressivejudaism]

“Untaneh Tokef, the prayer that imagines God inscribing in the heavenly book who shall live and who shall die in the year to come…Untaneh Tokef invites the whole community into the truth with which sick and grieving people live every day… So, too, on Yom Kippur we enact a 25-hour period of practice for the experience of dying. Deprived of food, drink and sexual pleasure, dressed in the white of the shroud, constantly reminded that the gates will soon close, we come face-to-face with our own mortality… The goal of the High Holidays, perhaps like the journey of life itself, is to emerge on the other end as a more righteous and godly person, more conscious of life’s fragility and beauty, and more grateful for the blessings of life.“”

— Source: Words of Rabbi Amy Eilberg, exerted from Mishkahn HaNefesh for Yom Kippur (p. 211)

[mockiato-deactivated20200315]

While we’re giving opinions

I think a much larger problem than the small handful of people who lie about being Jewish for tumblr-based reasons on tumblr—and yes, the couple who have taken it so far as to lie to rabbis in order to convert, or who have passed themselves off to rabbis as Jewish from birth—a very small group of people who are like literally just a tumblr issue...

Is the fact that these, what, ten? fifteen? People in the entire world absolutely will lead to people (on tumblr) acting as if there’s a 50/50 shot that converts are lying or have malicious motives, increasing stigma against converts.

Yes, people on tumblr will lie about personal identities, absolutely any and all identities. This is a problem with tumblr. Religion, ethnicity, race, age, mental disorders, disability, being sex workers, country of origin, working in certain fields, being domestic abuse survivors, HIV status. Absolutely anything! People will lie about anything. People have been caught lying about all these things!

That is a problem with tumblr. It is not a problem with converts.

And it is better to allow people five, ten, fifteen people to lie about their Jewish heritage or about being a convert than it ever would be to treat converts as fake Jews or barely Jews.

[jewish-kulindadromeus]

So You Want to Celebrate Sh’mini Atzeret & Simchat Torah

This post is for people who are Jewish, converting to Judaism, seriously interested in Jewish conversion, or are Jewish-Adjacent (part of an interfaith family, etc.). It is **not** for gentiles who wish to “deepen their connection to Jesus” or any similar reason uninvolved with genuine interest in becoming a part of the tribe or participating with loved ones, as that is a form of cultural appropriation. Thank you for your understanding. Gentiles CAN, however, reblog! 

You’ve celebrated Rosh Hashanah. You observed the Days of Awe. You fasted on Yom Kippur. You’ve rejoiced in Sukkot. But, nope - Tishrei ain’t done yet! 

Learn what Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are 

While Simchat Torah is actually fairly easy to understand, in a lot of ways Sh’mini Atzeret is one of the most conceptually difficult Jewish holidays to understand 

They can either be two festivals on one day, or back-to-back festivals 

If you live in Israel, they are the same day, the day after Sukkot 

If you live in the Diaspora, usually they’ll be different days: Sh’mini Atzeret will be the day after Sukkot, and then Simchat Torah will be the day after that. So, in order:

Sukkot Day 6

Sukkot Day 7 (Hoshana Raba) 

Sh’mini Atzeret (Day 8)

Simchat Torah (Day 9)

If you live in the Diaspora and are in Reform, usually your congregation will combine Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah into one day. So, for most reform Jews & Israeli Jews (plus some other outliers): 

Sukkot Day 6

Sukkot Day 7 (Hoshana Raba)

Sh’mini Atzeret & Simchat Torah (Day 8)

Look into your community/congregation and see how they celebrate the holiday 

Regardless of how many days this time of year is, it’s a Yom Tov - a holy day with most of the same provisions as Shabbat. So if you celebrate two days, both are Yomim Tovim; if you celebrate the one, it’s just the one 

This marks the end of the “High Holy Day Season”; even though the time of teshuvah finished with Hoshana Raba, Sh’mini Atzeret and Simchat Torah mark the end of the Tishrei Holiday Extravaganza, and also mark the renewal of the Torah cycle, which fits with the theme of a New Year. But I’m getting ahead of myself 

So what is Sh’mini Atzeret? Is it it’s own holiday? Or is it just the eighth day of Sukkot? What is it for? These are the hard-hitting questions 

Well, Sh’mini means Eighth, so in a lot of ways yes, it’s the eighth day of Sukkot

Except no, no it isn’t

But it also is 

Basically, in the Torah, it is stated on the eighth day of the Sukkot festival, there would be another holy occasion - literally a holy convocation 

The Rabbis explained it as such: 

HaShem invites the entirety of the universe - all living things, all people, everything - to be with Them for a week, to celebrate for a week 

But, on the eighth day, when everyone else leaves, HaShem invites the Jewish people to stay another day 

So Sukkot is a holiday for all mankind; but the Jewish people stay an extra day, Sh’mini Atzeret, for an intimate celebration 

Another explanation: it is a day to store up, and gather, all the joy and gratitude and love we felt during the High Holy Day season, and to store it up for the year ahead, especially the next month or so, because we don’t get another holiday until Chanukah in like, nearly two months 

So, while it’s attached to Sukkot, and shares many connections to Sukkot, it’s very different 

There is no more shaking of the Lulav and the Etrog 

Depending on the custom of your community, you either stop using the sukkah, or you continue to use the sukkah - but either way, you don’t use the blessing for dwelling in it 

You also recite the memorial prayer if you have someone to remember (ie, someone who died), Yizkor - we don’t have this ceremony during Sukkot

Finally, we change the prayer from Morid Hatal to Mashiv Haruach Umorid Hagashem in the Amidah - from “you rain dew upon us” to “you cause the wind to shift and rain to fall” 

So we start praying for rain during the winter season, as that is vital to Israeli agriculture 

It is a day to celebrate the unique relationship between HaShem and the Jewish people 

And it’s, finally, a day to just rest. Tishrei has been exhausting. Take a day for you. 

So, on to Simchat Torah 

Simchat Torah is significantly easier to understand! It’s the day we restart the Torah cycle

We read the last Parsha of the Torah - Parsha V’Zot HaBerachah - when Moses blesses the people, wishes them goodbye, goes up to Mount Nebo, looks at Israel, and dies; and Joshua takes his place 

We read the beginning of the book of Joshua as the Haftarah - so we continue the story right off the bat

We also read the very beginning of the bible - Parsha Bereshit - the myth of the world’s creation. So we start the cycle over again! 

So we rejoice in the Torah!

We don’t just study a lot of Torah - though, let’s be real, studying Torah is a joy in and of itself - we literally party it up 

There are two holidays associated with getting drunk in Judaism - Purim, and Simchat Torah

GET! PUMPED! 

There are processions around the synagogue with Toratot - multiple Torah scrolls. 

As many people as possible are given an aliyah - a blessing over the Torah reading - even children! 

People dance behind the procession, around the synagogue, in processions called hakafot (usually 7 of them), and children are even given stuffed or toy Torah scrolls so they also can carry! 

We express our joy in receiving Torah, and getting to study it anew, year after year after year 

Wait, hold up - why do we do this here? Why not on Rosh Hashanah (the new year) or on Shavuot (the day we celebrate receiving the Torah)?

Well, the history is quite interesting, in my opinion 

Essentially, during the time after the Babylonian Exile, it became common practice to read through the entirety of the Torah during the Sukkot festival 

This is kind of ridiculous, and over the years multiple different cycles of Torah readings appeared, one where the whole thing was read in a year, another when it took three years

When the cycle finished, it made sense to start the new cycle again - so that time was centered around Sukkot

As the three-year cycle fell out of favor (though some communities today still use it, though they follow a slightly different one), the holiday gained traction with the single-year cycle 

As Sh’mini Atzeret is kind of hard to understand, especially since we aren’t actually sure what “atzeret” means, it became the more notable part of the end of Sukkot holiday set 

Because these holidays are connected to Sukkot, and Sh’mini Atzeret is described in the Torah (kind of), these are kind of part of the Shalosh Regalim (the three pilgrimage festivals), but also not, because they aren’t when people migrated to the Temple in Jerusalem, but they’re attached to a holiday that is, and it’s also when people would gather to hear the whole Torah? So? They’re of roughly the same sanctity at any rate 

They also mark the end of the High Holy Day Season, so they’re connected to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as well, and finishing this time of year 

It is the wrapping up of the holiest month of the year - Tishrei - and the beginning of the new year in earnest, starting a more normal time again, and also starting over the Torah cycle. So it is a complex mixture of holidays - Sh’mini Atzeret being Bittersweet, and Simchat Torah being filled of pure uncomplicated bliss - joyful, but also sad, as this especially sacred time comes to an end 

The typical greeting for this holiday is Chag Sameach, meaning Happy Festival; you can insert either holiday name to make Chag Sh’mini Atzeret Sameach or Chag Simchat Torah Sameach, but those don’t flow off the tongue as well 

Revel in Your Eighth Day 

Regardless of whether or not you celebrate Sh’mini Atzeret on the same day as Simchat Torah or the day before, definitely take the “Eighth Day” as a day to relax, collect yourself, and enjoy 

Meditate and think on your relationship with HaShem - is it as close as the Rabbis say it is to be? Would you like it to be closer? Are you happy? 

Remember, regardless of how you approach Jewish theology and the very concept of HaShem, that it’s not just about how close the Jewish people are to HaShem - it’s also about how close you are to the Jewish people, to Jewish history, and to Jewish custom - so if you’re an atheistic/agnostic Jew, and uncomfortable with my previous point, feel free to reflect on those questions in regards to Judaism instead 

It is an extra day, just for us, just for us to love and be close to each other and to HaShem - feel that sort of peaceful joy, in whatever way you can 

If it is your custom, feel free to still enjoy the Sukkah! You can’t say the blessing anymore, but you can still sit in nature, enjoy the peace of the sukkah itself, and take just a little bit too long to say goodbye to the Sukkot season 

Do things that are fun and relaxing for you - don’t necessarily push yourself, but feel free to practice gentle self-care. Watch a movie you love, take a bubble bath, reading a good book, go on a nice walk outside - just enjoy the day, enjoy our extra day! 

Feel free to daven, meditate, study Jewish texts, whatever will make you feel close to HaShem in particular 

Take a Pause 

Since this is a pausing day - a day to rest, to take a break, to catch your breath after the High Holy Days - make sure to do that! 

During that meditation and davening I mentioned above, take a minute to reflect on how the High Holy Days went for you 

What did you find enlightening? What increased your teshuvah, your returning, to Judaism and to HaShem? 

What did you find unsatisfactory? Was there anything you meant to do, but didn’t? How would you like to continue to improve in the upcoming year? 

What would you like to take note of, for next year? For Chanukah? For the entirety of the year to come? 

What do you feel HaShem (or nature, or your community, or whatever) has been trying to tell you during this month? What has your body, your mind, your soul, been trying to communicate to you? In what ways do you need to improve? 

Consider it kind of a Report Card season for the High Holidays - time to check up on yourself! 

But still, also make time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak - or the pumpkin spice lattes, whichever 

We are slowly exiting the holy time with HaShem - you know, when you have to leave a friend’s house but you don’t really want to so you’re taking your sweet time in putting on your shoes and jacket, that kind of thing. Feel free to take your time during the day - don’t rush so much! Don’t push yourself so much! Take a breath, take a minute, enjoy each and every second of your day, because those are seconds for you! 

Just as you should do what makes you happy, you should also do what makes you relaxed - don’t stress yourself out too much on this day! 

Pray for Rain 

This is also a day for assembly - so go to the synagogue, and start praying for rain! 

It might feel kind of weird to do this if you live in a place where rain really isn’t needed in the time between Sh’mini Atzeret and Pesach in the spring, but it connects us with the knowledge of nature - with Israel - and with the entirety of the Jewish people 

Think about what we need from the upcoming winter season (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) - how we need the land to wind down, and relax, and get enough moisture to rejuvenate the plants - but also not necessarily stay cold too long! (Though, with the current problems of global warming, not really a problem, exactly -) 

Think of how the land of Israel - regardless of how you feel about the current political situation - requires rain to allow for the proper growing of crops, and how many people of all backgrounds require that the crops grow properly 

Pray for nature to care for us - even as we enter the darkest and sleepiest time of the year, we pray for us and nature to live in harmony, as we get through the colder months out to the other side

(If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, think instead - how do you want rain to rejuvenate you during the time in which the heat grows? How do you want the heat to grow crops, but also not get too intense? How do you want the seasons of growth to proceed?) 

Also connect with your community one last time during the High Holidays - close out the season with your community! 

Take Joy in the Torah! 

IT’S TORAH PARTY TIIIIIIIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 

We are commanded to LIVE by the Torah and now we’re really going to LIVE! 

Seriously it’s so rare for Jewish holidays to be filled with so much unbridled joy - yeah, we had that on Sukkot, but this is even more so, because Sukkot still had that underpinning of “last chance for teshuvah is on Hoshana Raba everyone LINE UP” and now we’re just like “okay all that’s done TIME TO DANCE” 

I’m not going to really condone drinking to excess but this is one of two times of the year when Judaism encourages it so feel free to do you 

Do things that are joyful! Not the kind of relaxed, self-care joyful of Sh’mini Atzeret (if you’re celebrating these holidays separately), but a full, bursting joy that you just can’t contain! 

Think about how much the Torah gives to the Jewish people - not just good things, but also things to wrestle with, and thus a tradition of argument and discussion - a tradition that has made us who we are today! 

TORAH TORAH TORAH TORAH TORAH TORAH - 

STUDY The Torah! 

WOOOOOOOO TORAH STUDY! 

Let’s go over those traditional TEXTS! 

What do we read for Sh’mini Atzeret? 

Deuteronomy 14:22 - 16:17 and Numbers 29:35 - 30:1 

These Torah passages go over setting aside food for the Levites, forgiving the debts and releasing the slaves periodically, and setting aside the Shalosh Regalim 

The Haftarah is 1 Kings 8:54 - 8:66 

This discusses HaShem being with Israel and the people of Israel and King Solomon, and people celebrating the seven-day festival and leaving on the eighth day

So, you know, typical things to read for a chag 

Alright, so what do we read for Simchat Torah? 

We finish the Torah Cycle! 

Deuteronomy 33:1 - 34:12 

As I described above - this is Moshe’s last blessing

And then he ascends the mountain, sees Israel, and dies 

Joshua takes his place, and leads the people into the future, while it is stated that no one will be as great a prophet for the Jews as Moshe 

Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 

The Creation Myth! 

HaShem creates the world, living things, and man 

HaShem sets apart Shabbat, and declares it holy! 

Numbers 29:35 - 30:1 

Once again, we go over the eighth day of the Sukkot festival 

And that it’s another gathering for Israel, in addition to Sukkot itself 

Joshua 1:1 - 1:18 

The beginning of the writings of the Prophets! 

Granted, the start of the Nevi’im (Prophets) reads more historical than prophetical, but there are still prophet predictions within, and it’s not so much an exact history as it is a theological explanation for historical events as remembered by the individuals writing it 

Joshua itself is often considered the sixth book of the Torah, as it starts where the Torah ends, and finishes the story of the Israelites settling in the land 

This passage in particular describes the preparation of the people for entering Israel, and the agreement of the people to do what needs to be done to take control of the Promised Land 

So study these texts! 

You’ll hear them, of course, if you go to Torah service, but in your down time, try to take a minute to study these texts on your own

Consider what the Torah says about Sh’mini Atzeret

Think about Moshe’s last speech! 

Reflect on the cycles of the Torah, and while the story has an endpoint, we start it all over again as we start over the cycle of it’s study 

Take delight in hearing and pondering words of Torah!!! 

Attend Simchat Torah Service! 

This is where the party is at! 

There are services in the evening and in the morning, depending on your synagogue! 

There will be so many aliyot you have no idea 

Seriously, everyone comes up to bless the Torah

This is a Thing 

Check in with your Rabbi if you’re not Jewish yet about whether or not you can go up with one - it depends on the community 

If you are Jewish of course, feel free to go up if an aliyah applies to you! 

Being close to the Torah is an awe-inspiring experience - never pass up the chance! 

Dance! 

Everyone will dance around the synagogue with Toratot 

If you’re called to carry the Torah, it is a huge honor - don’t drop it! 

Seriously though that’s really bad 

People go into mourning 

It’s no joke 

If you aren’t called to that, dance behind the Torah! Follow the procession! 

Feel your bliss! 

FEEL IT 

TAKE JOY IN THE TORAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

Sing! 

Sing with everyone! There will be niggunim (wordless melodies) and songs and prayers and just sing! 

Feel your kavanah - your intention to take joy in the Torah and the repeat of a new Torah cycle! 

These are songs of joy - let the joy fill you as you sing! 

Let the joy of the community and of the occasion fill you up, and carry you through to the end of the Tishrei season - bittersweet, to be sure, but still very sweet indeed 

Study Judaism!!!!!!! 

If you are begging for more after that Torah study up above, take this as a good time to study Judaism in general! 

If you’re in the process of conversion, study what your current texts are for your conversion! 

If you’re in the process of returning to Judaism, or coming to it anew because you weren’t raised with it, also study what you’re currently studying!!! 

If you just want an excuse to study something - peruse the websites! 

My Jewish Learning; Judaism 101; and various websites for different movements such as Reform and Chabad have great wealths of information! 

My Jewish Learning even has quizzes you can use to test yourself! 

Sefaria has all the texts! All of them! Use it to study original Jewish texts! The Torah is an especially appropriate choice, of course 

Take joy in your studies - Judaism is a tradition of study, and you are carrying on a grand tradition 

You are not alone!!!! 

So much of these holidays are specifically about gathering with the community - Sh’mini Atzeret being a season of assembly; and Simchat Torah being when we, as a community, start the Torah cycle over again 

So join the community! Come together and rejoice! 

We’re finishing up the season of rejoicing and the High Holy Days - finish the way you started, with your synagogue, community center, friends, or family 

Don’t be afraid to reach out - this is also when the young children in more liberal communities have Consecration, meaning they begin their Jewish studies; it’s a good time to begin yours, if you’re just starting! 

Don’t Just Listen To Me 

I am a simple Jewish nerd drowning in the sheer number of prehistoric ducks that we know about seriously why do I still have a month to go on my dinosaur blog I’m begging for answers HaShem - 

I have only my perspectives and only my studies to offer - I am not perfect! I miss things and misrepresent things! I can go on as many sources as I wish, but I’ll never cover everything perfectly - other people have their own insights and perspectives, and they’re worth learning about! 

LEARN FROM ALL. THE. MOVEMENTS. AND. CULTURES. OF. JUDAISM. EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY AND INFORM ABOUT THESE HOLIDAYS! 

Read, Engage, and QUESTION EVERYTHING! 

Buy the author a coffee: http://ko-fi.com/kulindadromeus 

[cardamompods]

a chassidic tale- a young boy woke up every morning hours before he needed to be awake just to go into the woods before school. when he got home, his mother would ask him what he was doing awake so early again. he told her “i go into the woods to talk to Gd”, to which she replied “you don’t need to go to the woods for that. you know Gd is the same everywhere, right?” and the little boy said “i know. but i’m not.”