Simchat Torah

Two friends and I went to one of our supervisor’s house for Simchat Torah. She is our “creative writing” teacher, we’ve only had a few lessons with her, and she invited us to her house. She is quite the hippy in both her wardrobe and her ideas. Soon after we arrived we went to services at their reform synagogue in Haifa. I was excited to go to a reform synagogue in Israel for two reasons: 1: I had never been and 2: I would be able to be a part of the service (instead of being stuck upstairs in the back where I can neither see nor hear the service.)

For those who do not know, Simchat Torah is a holiday in which Jews celebrate the end of the Torah. Every week we read a portion of the Torah and on Simchat Torah we finish the entire book. The holiday is usually celebrated with wine, food, and dances with the Torah. At this synagogue there was a short service and then the Rabbi led us in dances where we all had the opportunity to hold the Torah. It was a lot of fun and I almost felt like I was back at camp…. Teko actually. Since there were so many little kids there and all the adults began forming trains, and dancing to our singing. It was a fun experience.

The next day my friends and I decided to walk around Haifa and people watch. We sat in a café for a while and saw a group of boys singing and dancing down the main street in Haifa, carrying a Torah! It was the strangest thing! I suspect that is what Jerusalem would look like.

Haifa also has a festival during Sukkote and Simchat Torah, The Haifa Film Festival. We decided to see a film there, and preferred to see an Israeli film (since we are in Israel). We saw a film called The End of Summer. It was all right. Hollywood is much better at making films- not to be biased or anything. But there was not a lot of activity in the film, although it was an interesting perspective of Israeli society. The film was about family issues: the daughter could not read, the mother was re-united with her father- who left her when she was young, and the girl’s father cheated on her mother. Again nothing that interesting but it was still nice to watch a film among Israelis in Israel.