by Phyllis Chesler

Once, long ago, I danced with the Torah on Simchat Torah—and yes, it was in an Orthodox shul in Brooklyn. My chevrutah, the late, great Rivka Haut (z”l) looked at me caustically and wondered if I really wanted to “dance” with the Torah. I did – but not in this way. Soon afterwards, we began publishing devrai Torah together. Now that, my dear friends, is Torah dancing. It was possible to carry it with us for 40 years in the blazing Sinai wilderness, and for thousands of years, thereafter, into all the lands of exile.

In Torah, one time-travels at any one of a hundred levels of meaning: the historical, the narrative, the prophetic, the redemptive, the psychological, the legal, the mystic, the personal. Chagall had it right. In his paintings, stern and dreamy Jews dance with our Torah in the air, against both gravity and time.

Chag Sameach!

Shabbat Shalom!