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Rabbi Posner Adapts Simchat Torah Rituals to Honor Fallen Soldiers

9:12 PM ETConfirmed

Faith Desk

In Short: Senior Rabbi Chai Posner of Beth Tfiloh Congregation in Baltimore is adapting Simchat Torah rituals to honor the fallen soldiers and hostages from the October 7 attack.

Instead of the usual upbeat tunes, Posner plans to begin the holiday with slower songs focused on Israel and prayers for the soldiers.

Posner is also bringing the Simchat Torah Project to Baltimore, an initiative created by the Religious Zionist movement Mizrachi.

The project aims to honor the memory of the 1,200 souls lost on October 7 and the many hundreds since, by providing synagogues with new memorial Torah covers.

So far, more than 600 Torah covers have been distributed to communities across 30 countries.

Posner contacted Marty Taylor, whose wife is a cousin of one of the fallen soldiers, to inform him about the initiative.

Taylor expressed that the project is a beautiful way to honor the memory of his cousin, who was deeply religious and lived his life for others.

Posner said, “It’s important to leave space for all those emotions. We’ll begin our hakafot with some slower songs, specifically about Israel and about prayers for the soldiers and so on.”

Posner added, “At a certain point, we’re going to shift to a regular day, because we believe if we don’t celebrate the way we normally do, then in a way, our enemies are getting the upper hand on us.”

Taylor reflected, “We went from the horrible sadness of Yom Hazikaron right into the joyousness of Yom Ha’atzmaut. That just seems to be the story of our people.”

What this adds

Background

What's confirmed

• Instead of the usual upbeat tunes, Posner plans to begin the holiday with slower songs focused on Israel and prayers for the soldiers.
• Posner is also bringing the Simchat Torah Project to Baltimore, an initiative created by the Religious Zionist movement Mizrachi.
• The project aims to honor the memory of the 1,200 souls lost on October 7 and the many hundreds since, by providing synagogues with new memorial Torah covers.
• So far, more than 600 Torah covers have been distributed to communities across 30 countries.
• Posner contacted Marty Taylor, whose wife is a cousin of one of the fallen soldiers, to inform him about the initiative.
• Taylor expressed that the project is a beautiful way to honor the memory of his cousin, who was deeply religious and lived his life for others.

What's still developing

• “This year’s Simchat Torah will be a particularly difficult holiday to celebrate,” Posner, the senior rabbi at Beth Tfiloh Congregation, said.
• “It feels very good to contribute to his memory and to feel like he’s still with us in whatever ways we can make that happen,” Yoggev said of Yogev and The Simchat Torah Project.
• “They feel it’s meaningful that there’s someone across the world who’s going to be dancing with the Torah and thinking about them and their family members,” Posner said of the Israeli families he met.
• “I haven’t really figured that out yet,” Taylor said.
• Hebrew for “the joy of Torah,” Simchat Torah is typically celebrated with singing, dancing and parading with the Torah scrolls.
• He registered with The Simchat Torah Project and bought four Torah covers, each embroidered with the flag of Israel and the name of a victim of Oct.
• “On the one hand, it is a festival, a day when it is forbidden to give eulogies and to mourn,” Rabbi Leo Dee wrote in Britain’s Jewish Chronicle.
• “How can we celebrate when the Jewish people has lost so many hostages, soldiers, siblings, and friends, when we in Israel have sat shiva too many times?” reads a guide for this year’s Simchat Torah published by Hadar, the egalitarian Jewish educational institute.
• Many congregations are focusing on the core Simchat Torah ritual of hakafot, or sets of seven circular dances around the Torah.
• “What a lot of rabbis are talking about doing is having one of those circles be kind of staid and subdued and maybe even silenced, as opposed to singing and dancing, to mark those who were lost,” said Rabbi Mike Uram, the chief Jewish learning officer at the Jewish Federations of North America.
• “Let us use it to express justification or protest, shock or weeping, the inability to accept contradictions, or acceptance,” she wrote.

Sources

• Baltimore Jewish Timeslink
• Jewish Telegraphic Agencylink
• Philadelphia Jewish Exponentlink
• The Jerusalem Postlink
• The Jewish Chroniclelink
• Unpackedlink
• Jtalink
• Jewishvoicesnjlink
• Azjewishpostlink
• Jewishjournallink
• Warpbeatlink
• Jnslink
• Forwardlink
• WarpBeat — background on Why We Dance on Simchas Torah link
• WarpBeat — background on Simchat Torah: Where there’s change, I find hope link
• News Central — video link