In the summer of 1992, I moved to Jerusalem to begin rabbinical school. That fall, I experienced my first High Holy Day season in Israel.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were especially powerful—particularly experiencing the whole city, and seemingly the entire country, shutting down. There were no cars except emergency vehicles; everyone was walking on foot or riding scooters and bikes.
Then I watched sukkot spring up on balconies and in backyards all over Jerusalem as people prepared for our Festival of Joy.
And then came Simchat Torah—unforgettable for a few reasons.
First and foremost, I met the woman who would eventually become my wife and the mother of my daughters at a holiday gathering at a friend’s home.
Later that same evening, a few of my fellow rabbinical students and I walked to a small shteibel (synagogue) in Me’ah She’arim for late-night Torah study with Rabbi Moshe Weber, now of blessed memory.
It was Simchat Torah in Me’ah She’arim, so there was singing and food and plenty to drink. Bottles of wine, vodka, schnapps, and scotch were on the table.
I was more interested in the chocolate rugelach.
At one point, Rabbi Weber picked up one of the pastries in one hand and a glass of wine in the other and asked us:
“Ha’im zeh simcha? Is this joy?”
And then, rather dramatically, he set the wine down and practically threw the pastry back onto the tray from which he had taken it.
“This isn’t simcha!” he exclaimed.
And then he continued: Real joy is simcha shel Torah—the joy of Torah.
I’ve thought about that moment many times since.
I don’t think Rabbi Weber meant that there is anything wrong with enjoying a good rugelach—or even a nice glass of scotch. Judaism certainly knows how to celebrate.
The Rabbi was making a distinction between pleasure and joy.
Pleasure is certainly better than pain and can lift us up in all sorts of ways. But it does not necessarily endure. It can be ephemeral and fleeting.
Joy on the other hand has weight and permanence.
Joy, at its deepest, comes from knowing that our lives have meaning and purpose.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772–1810) famously taught:
מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה תמיד
“It is a great mitzvah to be joyful always.”
The teaching has become a beloved Jewish song. Often, another line is added—an inversion of the first—that deepens the message considerably:
“It is also a great joy to be engaged always in mitzvot.”
There is a particular happiness that comes from doing something that matters, from fulfilling the obligations of our tradition that make our lives about so much more than the avoidance of pain or the pursuit of pleasure.
Caring for someone who needs us.
Giving tzedakah generously and freely.
Visiting someone who is lonely and in need of comfort and companionship.
Repairing something that needs fixing.
Showing up for our family and our community.
Living according to values that ask something of us.
That, I think, is what Rabbi Weber was trying to teach us around that table.
And perhaps it is also the deepest meaning of Simchat Torah.
We rejoice in Torah not simply because Torah is fascinating to study—although it certainly is. We rejoice because Torah teaches us how to live.
The purpose of Torah study is not simply to become more erudite.
We learn Torah so that Torah can shape us into the people we are meant to be.
Study leads to mitzvah.
Learning leads to action.
Wisdom leads to responsibility.
And a life filled with mitzvot—with acts of purpose, goodness, obligation, generosity, and love—can become a life filled with a deeper kind of joy.
That may be why on Simchat Torah we don’t only study Torah.
We dance with it.
We take it in our arms and rejoice.
Because we are celebrating not simply a book, but a way of life.
A life of meaning.
A life of purpose.
And, if we are fortunate, a life of profound joy.