Keep looking up

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These are such sad and terrible times inside and just across our borders lately, I have to keep urging myself:  "Keep looking up."

Especially now, on Hoshana Raba and on Simchat Torah, which is supposed to be a joyous holiday.
Simchat Torah mean Rejoicing in the Torah.
In Orthodox synagogues the men dance and sing with the Torah scrolls, while in Reform and liberal congregations the women and children join in in carrying the scrolls and everyone celebrates together.
The last parasha or portion of the last book, Deuteronomy, is chanted.
To keep the reading cycle going unbroken, the scroll is either rewound or a different scroll is opened and the first chapter of Genesis is begun immediately.

And so life goes on, at least for the lucky ones.
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A Torah's wanderings

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For the Simchat Torah holiday today, when we dance and sing with the Torah scrolls and rewind them back to Genesis 1, here is a very old scroll with a dramatic history.
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The deerskin on which it is written is unusually dark. Normally a Torah is a light tan color.

The Jewish museum at Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem, where it is now housed, tells this story:

This Torah scroll was written in Spanish script, probably before 1492, by an excellent scribe on deerskin.
It wandered to Germany. There the Jewish congregation of Krautheim repaired it and added a piece of parchment with the missing chapter, written in Ashkenazic script.
The scroll survived a flood, the Gestapo, and bombings of the house in whose attic is was hidden during World War II.
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The middle photo on the right shows the old Jewish hospital in Karlsruhe where it was hidden.

If you enlarge this photo you can see where the two pieces were stitched together.
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This post is especially for my good friend Angelika, a teacher in Karlsruhe.
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One more day

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Today is the Hoshanah Raba holiday.
These men are praying at the Western Wall with lulav and etrog.
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The one in the foreground is wearing a fur streimel, the traditional hat worn by certain branches of haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) on festive occasions.
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In a few hours the joyous holiday of Simchat Torah begins; and tomorrow night the week of Sukkot will come to an end.
I have not gone into Jerusalem and the Old City all week, wanting to avoid the press of the multitudes and the intense heat of this never-ending summer. I have not even been inside a sukkah.
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But I can offer you holiday posts from last year and the year before, in case you missed some.

Beating the willow on Hoshanah Rabah at the Kotel
About Simchat Torah and the Chagall windows synagogue
My first time inside the men's world of the four species market
The yearly shuk of the four species
Myrtle, willow, and palm branches at the shuk arba'at haminim

Selecting the perfect lulav
Dwelling in a temporary hut
Super-sukkah at the Western Wall Plaza
Chabad sukkah-mobiles in Rome and New York, and selecting the right lulav
About Simchat Torah, grandson Dean with a baby Torah scroll, and Seth Brown's new Torah translation in verse
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Shalom and chag sa-me-ach, happy holiday!
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Simchat Torah

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Today was the festive day called Hoshana Rabba. To see the throngs of worshippers at the Western Wall please see my post from last year.

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Tonight and tomorrow, immediately following the 7-day Sukkot festival, we have Simchat Torah (meaning "Rejoicing of the Torah"). In the synagogue the annual Torah reading cycle is completed and begun anew. The end of the fifth book of Moses is read, the scroll is rewound, and the first part of Genesis is chanted.

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As the Chabad website says, "The event is marked with great rejoicing, especially during the 'hakafot' procession, in which we march, sing and dance with the Torah scrolls around the reading table in the synagogue. 'On Simchat Torah,' goes the chassidic saying, 'we rejoice in the Torah, and the Torah rejoices in us; the Torah, too, wants to dance, so we become the Torah's dancing feet.'"

At Hadassah hospital's synagogue the Torah scrolls stand in this Holy Ark.

The ark doors are covered by a parochet.

This very special ark covering was designed and created by American-Israeli artist Aviva Green in 1981-82.

The stylized Hebrew calligraphy says "Da lifne mi ata omed," the exhortation "Know before whom you stand."

The Torah is opened and read on the reading table in the center of the synagogue. Here, too, the artist created a soft sculpture to cover the table, in wool, cotton, silk, hemp, and metallic thread. It can be seen better, without the glass, in a slideshow at the artist's website.

The artist explains in just a few wonderful paragraphs how she came to the ideas for her Two-Piece Soft Sculpture.

And above it all are the twelve glorious stained glass windows by Marc Chagall!

For more about the vitrage work please see my earlier post.
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Shabbat shalom and happy Simchat Torah!

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