Bridegroom of the torah (Simchat Torah)

“On the eighth day shall be a holy convocation unto you; and ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the Lord; it is a day of solemn assembly; ye shall do no manner of servile work.” (Leviticus 23:36)

 Simhat Torah celebrates the annual completion of the reading of the Torah. It is the day immediately following the Feast of Tabernacles or the Fall Harvest, the same as was celebrated by the Puritans, which became America’s unique national holiday of Thanksgiving.

Other than this “eight day holy convocation” mentioned in Leviticus, there is no prescribed ritual for the holiday of Simhat Torah. A synagogue ritual developed around the completion of the reading of the last sacred book of the Torah, Deuteronomy. The reading ends with the farewell oration and blessing of the tribes by Moses, followed by reading the beginning of Genesis from a second scroll. As day rolls away before night and night before the day, the ritual symbolizes the never-ceasing reading of the sacred scroll. This holiday’s simple rituals are actually some of the most symbolically rich in the Jewish liturgy. The sacred scrolls are carried seven times around in the midst of the congregation, often in a dance. The bride-bridegroom, Israel as God’s betrothed is the primal imagery of the covenantal relationship of God to Israel and occurs full blown in the rituals of the Tabernacle in the Book of Exodus.

A prayer shawl is suspended like a canopy (huppah, canopy used in the marriage ceremony) above the readers thereby bringing the wedding imagery into the heart of the service. The Torah is treated as the bride, and the reader of the last words in the first Torah is given the title of “the

Bridegroom of the Torah,” and the reader of Genesis, in the second Torah scroll is given the title,“Bridegroom of Genesis.”

The combination of the festive with the solemn presented interesting design challenges and so did the end-beginning of the two Torah scrolls. The result is a severe design rendered in festive colors. The canopy acts like a risen curtain drawing the viewer up, and then down and close in to the central figures as a participant. Lastly, the viewer is drawn down below eye level to the stark whiteness of the Torah set upon the reading table, (the bima) symbolically an altar of consecration. How to express the oneness, or singularity of this “Bride” Torah, when two Torah scrolls are actually used in the service was solved simply and unrealistically. The Hebrew writings on the scroll are the actual readings but one is the last part of Deuteronomy and the other, the first part of Genesis, readings that would never occur together at the same place in a Torah scroll. This liberty of design may be disturbing to some, but whosoever is able to read it will know instantly which holy day is expressed here. To use a modern term, Simhat Torah is “encrypted” in the painting.