Dancing with the Torah

This past weekend was Simchat Torah. This is supposed to be one of the happiest days of the year because you drink and dance with the torah. For this, I went to Tsfat which is one of the holiest cities in Israel. Tsfat is a very artsy and orthodox city...& it is also beautiful!

I went there with my program. We left early Sunday morning and stayed in a hotel for the night. When we got to the hotel, we had refreshments and a chance to Shake the Lulav for the last time. We had some free time after, so we decided to walk around the city for about 30 minutes. It was actually very chilly, which felt nice.


After this, we had orientations and lectures....which were not that interesting. We also lit the candles, had a mincha service, kiddush and more refreshments. After all of that, we went to a different building and started dancing with the torahs Hakafot/Hasidic style. We all had to wear long skirts and shirts that covered our elbows, which was annoying because it got really hot. It was still really fun! We danced with the torahs for about an hour and a half and finally went to dinner. They had so much food, it was crazy! They passed out a lot of wine, beer, and vodka as well. After the meal, we went back to the other building and danced some more for a few hours. We had the option to go to lectures with the Rabbi, Farbrengen, or just have free time. I was so tired, so I decided to go to sleep.  The next morning we slept in and of course I wasn't feeling well, but I just got ready for the day anyways. We went to the other buliding again and danced again. They passed out more wine, beer, and vodka. I did not really have any energy so I sat and watched for a little bit. I missed breakfast, so I was also hungry. After dancing all morning, we had a torah reading and service for an hour. When we finished we finally ate lunch...I was starving. After lunch, we had some free time and then more lectures and workshops. I went to the "Bringing Spirituality Down to Earth" workshop. I felt like it lasted forever and the rabbi would never stop talking. When it was finally over, we had a tour of Tsfat. It's such a beautiful city. I started feeling sick again and started getting a fever, so the second we got back to the hotel I went to sleep. I felt bad for missing all the activites that were going on, but I could not handle it. I slept for a good hour and felt much better afterwards, but not great. When I woke up it was dinner time, so I ate a very light meal, went to my room and packed. We left the hotel around 9pm and went to another area in Tsfat. We danced and danced on Jerusalem Street. The women and men were separated since it was orthodox...same as the night before. It was a really good experience because I had never done anything like this before. I'm very happy that I was able to experience this in Israel. I always have celebrated Simchat Torah, but not like that. I usually celebrated by going to synagogue and having dinner. I won't ever forget this experience.