Tonight the final day of autumn holidays takes place in Israel - at the same time Shmini-Atzeret (the eighth day from the beginning of Sukkot) is celebrated, as well as the celebration of "Joy of Torah" ("Simhat-Torah").
As the "Cursor" noted, on Simchat Torah, they finish reading the Torah on the Scroll and immediately begin reading it again (the section "Bereshit"). On the same day, a prayer is read about the winter rains in Eretz-Israel and the memorial prayer "Izkor."
Outside of Israel, the holidays of Shmini-Atzeret and Simchat-Torah are celebrated on different days.
The Simchat Torah festival has a pronounced religious-Zionist aspect, it played a major role in preserving the national self-consciousness of the Jews of the USSR during the period of state anti-Semitism and persecution of "people of Jewish nationality" for observing any "obscurantist" traditions.
A detailed description of the celebration of Simchat Torah in 1966, near the building of the only "official" Moscow synagogue on Arkhipov Street, was left by the Nobel Prize winner, American writer Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust in Europe:
"I moved among them, like a lunatic, shocked by what I see and hear, half distrusting my own senses. I knew that they would come - but not in such numbers. I knew that they would celebrate - but did not know that the celebration would be so authentic, and so deeply Jewish.
They sang and danced, talked to each other and to strangers. Their faces shone with a special light, their eyes burned with an ancient flame burning in the house of their ancestors - to which they, apparently, have finally returned ...
This evening gave me new hope and inspired me. Do not despair. The Jews of Kiev, Leningrad and Tbilisi, who complained to me that the future of Russian Jews in question, were wrong ...
Everyone blamed this generation for not believing in God and ashamed of their Jewishness. They are told that any mention of Israel is allegedly unpleasant. But all this is not true. In their love of Israel they surpass Jewish youth anywhere in this world. "
As you know, in the first hours of the festival, after the evening prayer, in the synagogues and on the streets of the cities of Israel, dances around the circle ("akafot") with the Scrolls of the Torah begin in hands.
During the morning prayer (this year - October 12) the reading of the last chapter of the Torah on the Scroll ("Zot ha-Braha") is completed and immediately begins the reading of the first chapter - "Bereshit."
In the commentary to the first paragraphs of the Torah, which deal with the Creation of the World, the great sage Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (RASHI) noted that Jews will return to their homeland, but will be accused of "stealing another's land."
This must be answered - and Muslims and Christians: if you believe that the Almighty created the Earth and the whole universe, you can not help but know that he gave the Land of Israel only to the Jewish people, wrote RASHI.
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki lived in Germany and France about a thousand years ago (1040-1105), but his comments are still considered unsurpassed in depth and relevance, as well as accessibility for all who study the TANAKH (starting with five-year-old children).
