Simchat Torah

A Jewish festival celebrating the completion and restarting of the annual Torah-reading cycle. Its services feature dancing with Torah scrolls and reading the cycle’s final and opening passages.

Hakafot: Processions in which worshippers carry Torah scrolls around a synagogue, often with singing and dancing. The repeated circuits with Torah scrolls are the festival’s most visible celebration.
Torah: The foundational Jewish teaching, especially the five books of Moses, in written and interpretive traditions. The festival celebrates public reading of this central Jewish scripture.
Shemini Atzeret: A Jewish festival observed on the twenty-second of Tishrei, following the seven days of Sukkot. In Israel, Simchat Torah coincides with this festival day.
Torah ark: A cabinet in a synagogue that houses Torah scrolls when they are not being read. Opening the ark signals the communal setting for taking out the festival scrolls.
Kol ha-ne'arim: A Simchat Torah custom in which children gather beneath a tallit during a Torah reading. The custom brings children into the festival’s communal Torah-reading service.
Torah reading: The public recitation of passages from the Torah in Jewish worship. Simchat Torah marks the annual cycle of this synagogue practice.
Hebrew calendar: A lunisolar calendar used to determine Jewish dates and festivals. It places Simchat Torah at the close of the Tishrei festival season.
Jewish liturgy: The set forms of prayer, readings, and rituals used in Jewish worship. Festival prayers frame the processions and readings as worship, not merely celebration.
Deuteronomy 34: The final chapter of Deuteronomy, recounting Moses’ death and the end of the Torah. Its concluding verses complete the annual reading cycle on Simchat Torah.
Parashah: A section of the Torah assigned for public reading on a particular week or occasion. The festival pairs the cycle’s final parashah with its opening passage.

Linked from 2 pages