Why We Should Dance this Simchat Torah

Imagine you are a general in the British Army. It’s 1945, and you have endured six years of brutal war. If someone showed you the atomic bomb along with a message that it will be deployed in 24 hours, wouldn’t you dance for joy? 

For 3,337 years, we’ve danced to celebrate the completion of reading the entire Torah. Every week, we learn a portion of the Five Books God gives to us through Moshe. The 22nd of Tishrei, Simchat Torah, celebrates learning the entire Chumash.  

This Simchat Torah marks the one-year anniversary of the massacre at the Nova music festival and kibbutzim in the Gaza belt. Over 1,200 martyrs. It begs the question: Do we have more reason to dance or less reason? 

The Torah we dance over is where Hashem declares His mastery over the universe and His Kingship over the Jewish People.  

In the past year, we have seen Divine miracles: 

👑 The Iron Dome, Arrow System, and David’s Sling had the capacity to shoot 90% of missiles coming from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. In the past 12 months, it has intercepted more than 98%. There have been minimal casualties despite more than 26,000 missiles fired at Israel.  

👑 Where 26,000 missiles have done minimal damage to Israel, the weaponry we have fired into Palestinian-controlled areas in Gaza, South Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran have all hit the target. Arab Gaza is no more than a pile of rubble.  

👑 While 750 IDF soldiers lost their lives in the line of duty, over 40,000 Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists have been eliminated.  

👑 We took control of Gaza and South Lebanon in a matter of weeks. 

👑 It took the United States 12 years to eliminate Saddam Hussein, 10 years to assassinate Osama bin Laden, and 6 years to kill Adolph Hitler. In less than 12 months, we executed Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, Yasha Sinwar in Gaza, and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.  

👑 We are openly ignoring public statements by leaders of America and Europe to retreat. We have consistently told the Secretary General of the UN that he is not welcome here; we’ve kept him off of our Holy Land.  

From Avraham’s brave raid to save his nephew Lot, Yaakov’s confrontation of Esau, our standoff with the Egyptian army just prior to the splitting of the Sea, Amalek’s attack on us in Persia that led to Purim, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and this current Iron Swords war – Hashem protects us.  

His Torah confirms everything we have seen in every war we fought: God fights with us. He blesses our warriors. He blesses His nation. He defends us against enemy fire. He confounds our enemies so we can roll over them with ease.  

As long as we perform His mitzvot, He will protect us to an even greater degree: 

❤️ Those who dedicate their lives to Torah and mitzvot don’t have to serve in the military. They pay the least amount of taxes to finance those that do serve.  

❤️ Not a single Jew observing Simchat Torah sustained injuries on October 7 – even those living in areas conquered by Hamas.  

❤️ Just last week, a Hezbollah drone made a direct hit on 300 Golani soldiers eating dinner on their training base. Minutes before the strike, dozens of religious soldiers stood up and went to the far side of the dining hall to wash mayim aharonim, prior to reciting Grace After Meals. By walking away from the point of impact, they walked away from the explosion unharmed.  

❤️ A mother of one of the hostages started to perform the mitzvah of prishat Challah, reserving a piece of challah dough for the Kohanim. A week later, her daughter was freed.  

The Torah that God gives us is like possessing unlimited nuclear warheads that can hit any target at unmatched speed.  

If you had such an arsenal – wouldn’t you dance for joy?  

The Reasons to Dance 

In Sefer Devarim, the last Book of the Torah that we complete on Simchat Torah, Hashem tells us many times that if we follow His commandments, He will fight our wars. He will bless our warriors. He will guarantee us victory. He will destroy our enemies.  

We will be the most powerful nation on earth. We will lend to other countries, and they will not lend to us. We will conquer the entire Land Hashem promises Avraham – from the Euphrates River to the Nile River.  

Conquering the Land from the hedonist idol-worshiping Greeks was a mitzvah. We celebrate Chanukah, on which Hashem granted victory to a handful of Torah Sages over the army that Alexander the Great once commanded.  

It was a mitzvah in 1948 for the Jewish People to conquer the Land of Israel. Hashem fought for us, and seven Arab armies led by seasoned British generals who defeated the Nazis were pulverized into quick submission.  

It was a great mitzvah in 1967 for the Jewish People to conquer Jerusalem, Judea, Shomron, the Golan, Gaza, and Sinai. Hashem fought for us, and we conquered four Arab armies backed by the Soviet Empire in six days.  

When Hashem fights for us, miracles happen.  

On Simchat Torah, we dance around the most powerful weapon of salvation for the Jewish People: The Holy Torah that Hashem gives to us.  

More Reasons to Dance 

For decades, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and hundreds of terrorist groups throughout the Middle East conquered their enemies and did to their women and children what Hamas did to ours.  

This is what Arabs and Iranians have been doing for thousands of years to those they subjugate.  

Rabbi Avigdor Miller brings down from the Gemara: 

No misfortune comes upon the world if not for the sake of Yisroel (Yevamos 63a). 

For decades, we have been warned about what could happen if we failed to listen to Hashem through His Torah.  

We embraced sodomy and all its licentiousness. We rewarded terrorists with college degrees while uprooting brave Jewish patriots from their homes in Judea and Shomron countless times. We turned a blind eye as Palestinians and Israeli Arabs armed themselves to the teeth while confiscating the guns of every Jew who would dare defend himself and his family from attack.  

We harassed farmers, business owners, and other law-abiding citizens with fines and court summons as we restrained Israelis from preventing Arabs from stealing their crops, their livestock, and their cars.  

We denied jobs to Jews because they were Jews and gave them to Arabs because they were Arabs.  

We rewarded evil and punished good.  

For over 33 centuries, Hashem gave us fair warning of what could happen if we conducted ourselves in such a manner.  

The fact that the curses in the Torah are real confirms that the blessings are also real.  

Dancing on this Simchat Torah is like Rabbi Akiva laughing at a fox running through the ashes of the Temple Mount. He knew that since the prophecy of the destruction became real, so will the great redemption of the Jewish People become reality.  

🎉 October 7, 2023, is a testament that the Temple will be rebuilt.  

🎉 We will become a Torah Kingdom again, ruled by a king, the son of King David.  

🎉 The dead will return. We will learn Torah directly from Moshe, Avraham, Yehuda HaNassi, the Rambam, and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Maybe they’ll have a YouTube account where they give live Shiurei Torah (Torah lessons) where any of us can listen! 

🎉 The Jewish People will never have to combat darkness — we will be a bastion of Light unto the Nations.  

🎉 God will be as clear to the eye as the water below and the clouds above.  

To my beautiful brothers and sisters among Klal Yisrael: Chag Sameach. 

This Simchat Torah – we will dance again! 

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, 300 Marketing Solutions, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO-optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.