Jews Dance With the Torah Until It Ends — Then Start It Again

The last word of the Torah is Israel. The first word is Bereshit — In the beginning. On Simchat Torah, the moment the final verse of Deuteronomy is read, the scroll is rolled back to Genesis and the reading begins again without pause. No rest. No intermission. The Torah is never finished, because finishing it would suggest there is something beyond it — and the rabbis refused that implication. The entire holiday is a declaration: this is not the end of a book. It is an unbroken circle.

When Did Simchat Torah Become a Holiday?

Simchat Torah does not appear in the Torah itself. It is a rabbinic invention, and a relatively late one — it crystallized as a distinct festival during the Geonic period (roughly 600-1000 CE) in Babylon, tied to the Babylonian custom of completing the Torah in one year. In the Land of Israel, communities completed the Torah over three years, meaning there was no single dramatic finish. It was the Babylonian one-year cycle that created the need for a dramatic annual endpoint — and thus a celebration to mark it. The earliest detailed descriptions of Simchat Torah celebrations appear in the responsa literature of the Geonim, compiled in Baghdad c. 900 CE. By the 13th century, the custom of dancing with the Torah scrolls — called hakafot, circuits — was standard across most of the Jewish world.

What Are the Seven Circuits?

During Simchat Torah, the Torah scrolls are removed from the ark and carried in seven circuits around the synagogue — seven loops through the congregation, with the community dancing alongside and behind the scrolls. The number seven echoes the seven days of Sukkot just concluded, and also the seven circuits walked around Jericho in the book of Joshua (Joshua 6:3-4). According to Midrash Aggadah traditions compiled c. 900-1100 CE, the seven circuits also mirror the seven times the bride and groom circle each other under the wedding canopy — Simchat Torah is, in mystical terms, the annual wedding between Israel and the Torah. Each circuit is called by a different name in Kabbalistic liturgy, corresponding to one of the seven lower sefirot, echoing the same structure as the ushpizin guests of Sukkot.

Why Does Everyone Get Called to the Torah?

On a regular Shabbat, five to seven people receive Torah honors (aliyot). On Simchat Torah, everyone does — including children. In many communities, all the children come up together under a large tallit held like a canopy above their heads, and the biblical passage about Jacob blessing his grandchildren Ephraim and Manasseh is read over them (Genesis 48:16). This custom appears in the Tanchuma midrash tradition (composed c. 800-900 CE), which teaches that children are the guarantors of the Torah — meaning, the covenant that keeps the Torah alive in the world is not carried by scholars or kings but by the next generation learning their first letters. The child holding the corner of the tallit during the blessing is not a prop. The child is the point.

Who Is the Chatan Torah and Who Is the Chatan Bereshit?

Two great honors are distributed on Simchat Torah: the Chatan Torah (Groom of the Torah), who receives the final aliyah from Deuteronomy, and the Chatan Bereshit (Groom of Genesis), who receives the first aliyah from the new cycle beginning. These are among the most coveted honors in the Jewish year. The metaphor of "groom" is not accidental — the Kabbalah collection at jewishmythology.com contains over two hundred texts exploring the marriage imagery between Israel and Torah, including Zoharic passages (c. 1280 CE) that describe the Torah as the daughter of the divine king, given in marriage to the Jewish people at Sinai. The groom of the Torah, in this framework, is completing the wedding that began at the revelation fifty-one weeks earlier on Shavuot.

Why Dancing? Why Not Study?

A famous question in the Talmudic tradition: why do we celebrate the Torah with dancing instead of with learning? The answer given in the name of the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, 1720-1797) is striking: the body knows things the mind refuses. When you have studied the Torah all year — when you have wrestled with its laws, its genealogies, its repetitions — the mind reaches its limit. Dancing bypasses the mind. The feet rejoice in what the intellect cannot fully contain. This is why Simchat Torah celebrations have historically escalated far beyond the decorous: floor-shaking song, circles within circles, children on shoulders, old men weeping while they dance. In some Hasidic communities going back to the Baal Shem Tov's circle in 18th-century Ukraine, the dancing on Simchat Torah night was understood as the highest form of prayer available to human beings. Explore the full texture of this extraordinary holiday in our collection at jewishmythology.com.