It is the Yom Tov of joy! Zeman Simchaseinu. Each nightly Simchas Bais Hashoeivah will include overt joy, some food, music and dancing. Simchas Torah will be its culmination, with hours upon hours of dancing, and although my legs are not as young as they used to be, I will make every effort to participate as much as I can.
It was not so for a short contrarian tekufah in my early teens. I will admit that as a young kid of 15 or 16, the entire concept of dancing became strange to me. I will admit that I began to philosophize. Maybe it was an adolescent frumkeit, maybe it was an adolescent rebellion. Whatever it was, I did not feel like dancing in the circles, be it in shul or yeshiva, whether it was Shavuos in yeshiva, or even Purim, and at home during Simchas Torah.
I eventually joined. As much as I could not wrap my head around the revelry, I did not want to stand out, or, should I say, sit it out.
But at that age, when we began to question everything, I was not even sure what dancing was all about. I understood holding a chosson’s hands and spinning around with him as a form of embrace. At that age, my legs and knees much sturdier, I was able to do a kezatzkeh that would bring a smile to the chosson (and back then, the kallah). But that, I felt, was different. That was the mitzvah of being mesameiach a chosson v’kallah. In the context of dancing in yeshiva, I knew that there was something to it, but I was not sure what.
Anytime they shlepped me into a circle, either on a Shavuos night while waiting for the proper zeman to make Kiddush or perhaps on Purim or at a Simchas Bais Hashoeivah, I would stop and think, “What in the world am I doing?” I am walking around, maybe skipping or prancing, in a circle, singing a song.
I asked myself, “What in the world is this? Does this make me happy? Is this Jewish? What am I supposed to be thinking right now as I walk around in a circle singing ‘Vetaher libeinu’? I mean, the words beseeching the Ribono Shel Olam to ‘purify our hearts in order to serve you in absolute truth’ are pretty serious. What does jumping up and down have to do with it? Are we really prancing around while beseeching the Almighty to purify ‘libeinu’ to reach the highest levels of avodah?”
Truth be told, the only instrument that I play are the vocal chords, and I play them poorly at best. Despite that, my ears work fine, boruch Hashem, and I still enjoy listening to a nice niggun. I will admit that much of the newer music surpasses a mere niggun, sometimes for better, mostly for worse. In my high school years, I had a conversation with my zaide around the time of the release of a few new records with niggunim that my rabbeim would call “hashpa’ah fun der gass.” Indeed, there was a hue and a cry about the infiltration of popular American musical expression into what was then the burgeoning Jewish music scene.
My zaide was not a zealot in those matters, yet he did play out for me the inyan of a niggun as a supplication by singing, in his distinct voice and Litvisher accent, a few bars of “Tzavei yeshuos Yaakov” as a plea to the Almighty, exactly as the words say – “order the salvation of Yaakov.” It was almost like a humbled Jew was crying out to the Ribbono Shel Olam, pleading with the Almighty to order our instantaneous redemption.
“And one should sing it as exactly that,” he added.
And then I asked my zaide about dancing, and the perspective he gave changed mine. He quoted the Rambam at the end of Hilchos Sukkah regarding the joyous celebration of Simchas Bais Hashoeivah. The Rambam declares, “The common people and anyone who desired would not perform in these celebrations. Only the greatest of [Klal] Yisroel’s wise men: the roshei yeshivos, the members of the high court, the pious, the elders, and the men of stature.” The Rambam describes the simcha in which “only the greatest of [Klal] Yisroel’s wise men, the roshei yeshivos, the members of the high court, the pious, the elders and the men of stature would dance, clap their hands, sing and rejoice.”
My zaide told me something that helped me change my perspective. The Rambam says that those who wanted to dance were not invited! It’s those who are distinguished and don’t normally want to dance who led the festivities.
Dancing, and being overtly joyous, has a place in our theology and our history. After retaking the Aron from the house of Oveid, Dovid celebrated markedly. The novi tells us, “Michal, the daughter of Shaul, peered through the window, and she saw Dovid Hamelech hopping and dancing before Hashem, and she was disgusted in her heart.” She lashed out at him sarcastically, “How honored was today the king of Yisroel, who exposed himself today in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as would expose himself one of the empty ones.”
Dovid responds in a manner that defines the secret of dancing in front of the Ribono Shel Olam: “Before the L-rd, who chose me above your father, and above all his house, to appoint me prince over the people of the L-rd, over Yisroel. Therefore, I have made merry before the L-rd.” And then he adds the famous words, “Unkalosi od mizos…,” saying that he would even lower himself in a more subservient manner.
Maybe it is that total subservience, the total hisbatlus, to the greatness of the Almighty that makes us act like real nothings. Maybe that’s why we can act meshugah. But we have to be worthy of it.
Everyone knows the apocryphal half-true joke about the rabbi who stops in the middle of Mussaf on Yom Kippur and throws himself before the Aron Kodesh, crying, “Ribono Shel Olam, far Dir bin ich ah gornisht! Oh, G-d. In front of You, I am nothing!”
The president of the shul is so moved by this act of piety and humility that he follows suit, throwing himself to the floor beside the rov, crying, “Ribono Shel Olam, far Dir bin ich ah gornisht! Oh, G-d. In front of You, I am nothing!”
Then Yankeleh the poor shooster (shoemaker) jumps up as well. He comes bounding toward the front of the shul and is about to fall down, when the gabbai stops him. “Ver bist du tzu zein ah gornisht? Who are you to be a nothing?”
When we were in the first year out of high school in the Philadelphia yeshiva, our rebbi was the revered mechanech, Rav Mendel Kaplan. He was unconventional in every aspect of his essence, and he imparted a totally unique attitude toward American life.
Some of the phrases he used, or the subtle lines he said, hit us with the force of a sledgehammer. One story that I can’t forget taught us a perspective of dancing at weddings. It was not to have a good time, but rather to be mesameiach chosson v’kallah.
Rav Mendel, who would travel back and forth by car from Philadelphia to his home in Brooklyn, would occasionally take a train. He was a regal man, whose sartorial splendor had him impeccably dressed in a very stylish kapoteh with a homburg that seemed tailor made to match. He was once on his way to a chasunah when the conductor approached him.
In his heavily accented English, he relayed the conversation with the conductor.
“Rabbi, you look quite fancy. Where are you going?” asked the conductor.
“To a vedding,” rebbi answered.
The conductor smiled. “Ah vedding? Hev a goot time.”
End of conversation. He relayed it to us with the following addendum: “Azoi tracht der goy. ‘Who cares about the Chosson-kallah… …It’s all about you heving a good time.’”
I think of that line every time someone tells me to have a good time. And approaching the joyous day of Simchas Torah, I also think of it.
Simchas Torah and the Simchas Bais Hashoeivah are not to “hev a good time.” They are about dancing the way Dovid Hamelech showed us. Total hisbatlus. It made so much more sense to the young talmid who did not feel right about dancing, and it should feel right to the distinguished ones who dance with the correct intent.
In our eyes, we may think that we are something, but by shvitzing and dancing “b’chol oz” in front of the Sifrei Torah, we are declaring that we are no longer the distinguished lawyer, doctor, accountant, or even rosh yeshiva. To You, Ribono Shel Olam, we are simple folk ready to give of our entire essence in Your service and in our love for You. Ribono Shel Olam, we are totally machniah to You!”
I saw in a sefer that for the Simchas Bais Hashoeivah and on Simchas Torah, Rav Yehoshua Leib Diskin announced that all the amei ha’aretz should dance with tremendous fervor that year. “Who knows if they will allow you to dance next year, when Moshiach is here?”
