Each week of the year, another of the Torah’s fifty-four parshiot is studied, publicly read in the synagogue, and its lessons
applied to daily living. Thus the Jew lives with the Torah: the Five
Books of Moshè are his calendar, their chapters and verses marking, defining, molding and inspiring the weeks and days of his year.
Simchat Torah is the day on which we conclude the annual Torah-reading cycle. On this day, we read the Torah section of Vezot Haberachah (Devarim 33–34), and immediately begin a new Torah-reading cycle with the reading of the first chapter of Bereshit.
Simchat Torah means “the rejoicing of the Torah,” for the Torah
rejoices on this day. The Torah is the stuff of the Jew’s life: his link
to his Creator, his national mandate, the very purpose of his
existence. But the Jew is no less crucial to the Torah than the Torah is
to the Jew: it is he and she who devote their life to its study,
teaching and practice; he and she who carry its wisdom and ethos to all
peoples of the earth; he and she who translate its precepts and ideals
into concrete reality.
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