Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Eliza McCarroll

Over the last week or so, as we have celebrated and commemorated Simchat Torah, there are two different images that will forever remain in my memory.

One is from Erev Simchat Torah, as we danced and sang and yes, even rejoiced as we ended our cycle of reading our most sacred of texts, and began that cycle once again.

I cannot remember the song, but what I do remember is that a number of us were dancing on the upper bimah, when two little boys – including one who had just received his baby Torah at Consecration earlier in the evening – came to join us, the group of grownups moving around in a circle. They laughed and smiled with us and we made sure they didn’t hit their heads on the railings, and in that moment, I thought to myself, “this is what it is all about, this is the definition of l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation”. This adorable intergenerational moment epitomized the phrase from Kohelet that we have been hearing so much of these last few weeks: et s’fod, v’et r’kod – “there is a time for weeping and a time for dancing.”

The other image is from Tuesday night, as our community gathered with Yaron and Jacqui Vital, parents of Adi Vital-Kaploun, of blessed memory, a dual Canadian-Israeli citizen who was murdered on October 7 whilst protecting her two young sons. Yaron, Jacqui and Adi (z”l) are also the cousins of our Cantorial Soloist, Lindi Rivers.

As many of you will know by now, over the High Holy Days, we dedicated a beautiful new Torah mantle in Adi’s shem tov (good name), sketched and stitched by our talented congregant, Jodi Bager. You can read that story here.

At the conclusion of the evening, Jacqui and Yaron were presented, by Jodi, the Torah mantle designed in their daughter’s honour. There was barely a dry eye in the Mishkan as they held that scroll tightly, surrounded by their Canadian family, and Lindi led us in etz chayim hi, it is a tree of life. In this emotional moment, it was a reminder for us to live life exactly as we learned Adi would have wanted: with purpose, and with joy.

Et s’fod v’et r’kod – there is a time for weeping and a time for dancing, and we as Jews are skilled at holding simultaneous significant, often conflicting, emotions.

What I wanted to share with you, is that lesson in what I have come to understand about what Jewish joy is: crying with one eye and dancing with another, as our history and tradition have taught us to navigate the hardest and the happiest of times, and not to expect perpetual joy but to instead find fulfilment in what grounds us in life – including Torah, and community. These are the things that we hold fast to, for all of its supporters, in every generation are…happy!