חזק חזק ונתחזק

Simchat Torah 5784

So after a year, this morning my dog finally let me walk us together around the security road outside our house. Our old route. The last time we did that, just the two of us, was the day before Simchat Torah 5784.

Something that happened, since last Simchat Torah, is that I inadvertently and unintentionally built a stronger connection to the תנך. 

The next shabbat I went to shul and read Bereshit with everyone, a comeback, a revenge. It felt triumphant walking in, in a damaged way. Like limping through the pain but making it anyway. It was overwhelming, appreciating anew, in a way never felt before in my life, what it means to sit with a collective and experience heritage words together in one place at one time while undergoing active Jewish trauma at the same time. Yom Kippur levels of it. Tearful, and intense. Frightening in its power. Like something could be moved.

It felt so right I went back for Noach. For Lech Lecha. 

On and on, I read the parsha in some form each week this past year.  

And here we are, back to the beginning, but it doesn’t sound the same. It sounds even more together, more collective. Even when I’ve read it alone. We’ve been through something, me and each of these parshiyot, and beyond, and in the cases where I read it alongside a kehilla, even better. We’re still doing it! We still did it today!

With the end of new year chagim 5785, I can say it’s been some of the most random psukim/phrases that have set me off in tears. Joyful ones, painful ones, and honestly, most of the time – just, generally not-all-that emotional ones. I think they get me because they imply something, together. Because it’s often the ones we say out loud, in unison.

(It could be just regular old kaddish. Wow, kaddish. The most together thing of all. Who can take kaddish for granted anymore? After the kaddishes we’ve heard this year?)

Chazak chazak v’netchazek though – this year, after my year-long dance with keeping parshat hashavua in tact, despite the hell of last Simchat Torah – that one got me most of all.

Meet again next year. And the next.


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