Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

If you were to invite a person from the Torah for dinner, who would it be? The Ushpizin (the symbolic guests)  which are traditionally invited into the Sukkah are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron and David. And nowadays it is also common to invite the women; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. But aside from the ‘usual suspects’, and the stories they bring with them, who are the ones whose stories we do not normally hear? What about tea with Lilith and Eve, or Eliezer the ageing servant who is sent to find a suitable wife for Isaac? I would love to hear Dina talk, or have a chat with Joseph’s sons Menashe and Ephraim, or Moses’ sons Gershom and Eliezer. Or what about Hagar, Bilha and Zilpah, the maidservants?

Simchat Torah is a time for stories, for finishing chapters, and beginning new ones. For celebrating storytelling and reading, and for telling new stories as well.  A poignant message of Simchat Torah is that we do not finish on an end. The last story in the Torah is the death of Moses, but our tradition teaches us that we never finish on a low, on death, and instead tells us to take a breath, and then begin again. We roll the scroll back to the beginning, linking endings and beginnings. Simchat Torah is about celebrating the Torah, and the stories we read, wrestle with and cherish.

To help us explore and celebrate the Torah we have invited the wonderful soferet (scribe) Avielah Barclay, who last year taught us about the Torah and how it is made, and this year will teach us how to write Hebrew calligraphy, so that we can continue to write new stories, as we begin reading Parashat Bereshit, the very beginning.

And to really get into the joy of Simchat Torah, our very own Naomi Kramer has written a funny and poignant song for Simchat Torah, that is perfect for singing at the Shabbat table tonight. Whose stories will you tell?