Chag Sameach
There is something about Simchat Torah that I have always found both joyful and deeply meaningful.
After weeks of reflection, celebration, gathering, and renewal from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur through Sukkot we arrive at Simchat Torah, the final celebration of this season of Chaggim. We dance with the Torah. We celebrate its words. We read its final verses.
And then, almost without taking a breath, we begin again.
We move from the final words of Deuteronomy immediately back to the opening words of Genesis: Bereishit bara Elohim “In the beginning…”
We finish, and we begin.
To me, that is one of Judaism’s most beautiful expressions of resilience.
There is no moment when we say, “We have finished Torah. We understand it now.” Instead, we roll the scroll back and begin again, trusting that there is more for us to discover.
Pirkei Avot teaches:
“Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it.”
—Pirkei Avot 5:22
The words of Torah have not changed since we read them last year.
But we have.
We have experienced another year of joy and disappointment, accomplishment and challenge, celebration and loss. We have built relationships, made mistakes, learned lessons, changed our minds, and hopefully grown.
And because we are different, the same words can speak to us differently.
Perhaps that is one of the great invitations of Simchat Torah: not simply to begin the Torah again, but to begin ourselves again.
It invites us to ask some big questions:
How have we grown?
What have we learned?
What should we do more of?
What should we do less of?
What should we carry with us into the next cycle and what might we be ready to leave behind?
Here at the Tucson J, we are asking ourselves these same questions.
We do so not simply as an organizational exercise, but because learning, reflection, and renewal are essential to fulfilling our responsibility to you, your families, and our community.
Our Service Pledge remains our North Star:
“We create community based on Jewish Values by providing the highest quality programs and services in a safe and secure environment for all people of all ages.”
Those words remain the same. But just like Torah, we must continually ask what they require of us now.
How can we serve you better? Where do we need to grow? What have we learned from the past year? What should we strengthen? What should we change? What should we stop doing so that we have the capacity to do the things that matter most exceptionally well?
There is another Jewish teaching that feels especially appropriate. The Book of Lamentations tells us:
“Chadashim lab’karim, rabbah emunatecha” “They are renewed every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
—Lamentations 3:23
Renewal is not reserved for one moment. We are given the opportunity to begin again and again.
That is resilience.
Naomi Shemer captured a similar spirit in Od Lo Ahavti Dai “I Have Not Yet Loved Enough.” The song looks toward all that remains ahead—all there is still to experience, create, love, and accomplish. It is not a rejection of what has come before. It is a declaration that we are not finished yet.
And then there is Joni Mitchell’s beautiful The Circle Game
The seasons go round and round. The years move forward. We cannot stop their turning. Yet each time around the circle, we see the world from a slightly different place.
That feels particularly right for Simchat Torah.
We return to Bereishit, but we are not standing where we stood a year ago.
The Torah is the same.
The circle continues.
We have changed.
My hope for our J in the year ahead is that we have the courage to keep turning it and turning it again to listen, learn, question, grow, and sometimes change course. To hold tightly to our values while remaining open to discovering new ways to bring them to life.
Simchat Torah reminds us that reaching the end is not really an ending.
It is an invitation to take everything we have learned, roll the scroll back, and begin again with greater wisdom, deeper purpose, renewed energy, and hope for what is still possible.
Chag Sameach. May we dance, may we learn, may we grow and may we have the resilience to keep beginning again.
Cochenu b’Achduteynu | כחינו באחדותינו | Our strength is in our unity.
Am Yisrael Chai | עם ישראל חי
Todd Rockoff
President + CEO, Tucson J
