Trying to Torah...

The eighth night/day of Sukkot is Simchat Torah (this past Monday night).  This holiday celebrates the finishing of the reading of the Torah (the Five Books of the Bible - or Old Testament to some...).  Basically, Jews read portions of the Torah every week.  Doesn't matter if you are in London, Washington DC, Hong Kong or Jerusalem, everyone pretty much reads the same "part" of the Torah (Bible) each week.  Then when you get to Simchat Torah, you're done and it is time to literally start again, by going back to the first few words of Genesis, you know, the ones everyone seems know... "In the beginning..."

So of course, there is a holiday to commemorate all this.  Usually synagogues unroll the entire Torah scroll and have it on display.  People drink a lot!!! As in vodka shots and saying L'chaims (to life) all night long.  Often synagogues close off the street and they bring the Torahs outside and everyone dances the night away outside with the Torah, with flags, with candy, and with the vodka shots.  It is really fun.

When I was young and hip and lived in New York City, we would go out on Simchat Torah and dance and drink the night away.  We would look for our nice Jewish husbands to be... all in the name of celebrating a Jewish holiday!  I have some awesome memories of those days.  We often arrived home exhausted, feet sore, a little drunk and without aforementioned Jewish husbands - but we always had a blast!

Last year, I took Jonah to the Sixth & I synagogue downtown and left Vera home with a sitter (she was too little and I was solo...) and we met some friends who also had a little guy the same age as Jonah.  Jonah and has buddy had a blast even if they were up way past their bed time and it was cold out.  They drank grape juice, danced in the streets and played with a stuffed Torah - it was fun.

The year before last year, we were in Chicagoland and we had made some pretty awesome friends who lived in Skokie.  They invited us to their Sukkah during Sukkot and then to celebrate with them on Simchat Torah.  They had a little guy like Jonah as well.  Jonah and I went with them to shul hop all over Skokie on Simchat Torah night - this was religious Skokie - an it was fantastic.  Jonah loved it and he was little!  Tons of religious dancing and drinking and singing and fun - and yes it was super cold that night.

This year I looked around and I wasn't feeling it.  No one I knew with small kids was going anywhere to celebrate, dance or do anything Torah-esque...  The weather was super crappy - cold and rainy... I was still getting over the super sinus infection from hell... It just wasn't going to happen.

I pulled out my kaleidoscope and as I was doing so, Jonah serendipitously asked if we could do some"special art" - so that was it... we'd do special art for Simchat Torah.

Much like most of our art, we kind of make it up...  I went to the basement to cobble up some stuff. Inspiration comes from - wait for it - paper towel rolls...

Let's make our own Torahs and have our own Torah dance party.  Well, we tried.

We taped paper (I had some paper rolls for easels) to the paper towel rolls. We sort of rolled them and then Vera actually did the project and colored her Torah scroll and decorated it with stickers.  Jonah was in a mood.  He was way more into running around with the paper and unrolling it, cutting paper, drawing on everything but the paper and eventually destroying Vera's Torah.  So in the end, we didn't actually have any finished product Torahs.  Vera took and nap and well, Jonah sort of calmed down.

Then I tried again - Jonah wanted snack so we made up a Torah snack... well I did it and Jonah just sort of mushed his up... it's the process, not the outcome... (pretzel sticks, cheddar cheese and olives)

Later in the afternoon,we tried to dance with the stuffed Torah and do a Torah march with flags...  Ummm, not so much.  There was about 30 seconds of dancing.  Then came the throwing of the stuffed Torah... and then the ripping of the flags... that was the end of that...

It wasn't a rocking Simchat Torah.  But it was.  We tried.  Jonah and Vera totally know what a Torah is and the good thing about Simchat Torah, it comes again every year!

The best part of the whole Simchat Torah experience this year - it was another reminder that things come and things go, things start and things end, sometimes things are awesome, sometimes things are OK, sometimes things are not so much... but we keep getting the chance each year to do things differently and sometimes that is better - or sometimes it is just different and sometimes we fail - but as long as we get the chance to do it again, we've never really failed right?

We can always start again, write our story again, even begin with three little words, "In the beginning..."

Because the real truth is, every time we think, do, try, fail, succeed, love and live another second - it is always the beginning of something we haven't already thought, did, tried, failed, succeeded, loved or lived... that is the gift of Simchat Torah for me this year.

Jonah's

Mine...