Why Simchat Torah Is So Much More Than a Celebration - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen

This Shabbat is onra we get thera and we dance and dance and dance the whole day. I want to ask you a very easy question. When a person learns about being a lawyer, does he dance with his books of law? You've learned about being an accountant. Do you dance and celebrate with the books of accountancy? Why do we dance and celebrate with the Torah? Let's go back to the very beginning. There are in the Torah three regalim, three holidays. Pes, eight days of Pes celebrating and reminding us of when Ben is left mitime. Then we have Shabas Shab one day which is remembering Matan Torra when Hashem gave us a Torah. And then we have seven days of Sukkot. Seven days of sukus which is the benel ben isel sat during during the midbar in the sukkoti benel. So therefore we have again pes and sukus sukus is seven days because we are remembering that we sat in the midbar. There's two explanations for this sitting in the midbar. One is we actually sat in huts and the other pirouch is that we were covered and surrounded and protected by the anavod by the clouds of glory. So those are the three peskus. Now at the end [clears throat] of paras it talks about the last day of sukus. It says on the last day of sukus I'm going to quote on the eighth day shall be on the eighth day shall be a day of stopping you cannot do any work how do we call this last day of sukus which is not sukus it's a brand new holiday it's called shemi the word mean she on the eth day shall we stop working? So it's a very interesting one day. It's not PES. It's not shus. It's not sukus but it's part of sukus but it's not. What is it? So I'd like to tell you what Rashi says. Rashi says quoting a medish that for seven days God hosted the whole world. Bringing sacrifices to the beta mikdash hosts the whole world. On the last day, Hashem tells Am Israel, his his his beloved nation, he says, "My children, I love you so much. I want to spend one more day with you. I want to spend one more intimate, private moment with my love." And that's what the med says. It's the last day of it's almost like an afterthought. Hashem says, "Don't go. Stay with me. One more day. One more intimate day just you and me. That's the medish. We refer to the last day of Sukkot. On the eighth day of Sukkot in edit is we call it simra. Why? It's the day that we begin reading the Torah from Berius. It's also the day we conclude devarim and therefore we make a sem we make a huge party and we dance and we celebrate and we eat and we drink. Wow. It's such a beautiful beautiful day. Everybody likes the fathers, the mothers, the kids get bags of cot candy and sweets. Oh, that's pretty beautiful. What a beautiful. But I want to go back to the question of before and that is on is when we finish devarim and we start beratious. It's almost like the beginning of the school year and the end of the school year. The end of the reading of the Torah and the beginning of the new reading of the Torah. So we celebrate and we dance. But again, have you ever seen a lawyer dance with his book of law? Have you ever seen a doctor dance with his medic medical book or an accountant with his accountancy book? I don't know about you, but I have never seen a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant celebrate and make a whole sum with drink and with food and with family and with peck bags like we do on what's so special. That's question number one. Let's answer this question first. The answer is like this. When a person learns something secular, it's what's called it's called. When you learn something secular, it's called it's all intellect. My brain becomes richer in knowledge. I become more intelligent. I become smarter. That was called secular learning. When then we have something called learning, spiritual learning. That is when I learn Torah, not only am I enriching my brain with information, but I'm also enriching my heart with emotion. Torah is and reggish, intellect and emotion. When I finish a novel, when I finish an accountancy book, however much I enjoyed it, it's all in my brain. I'm not dancing with it because only my brain is celebrating. However, when I finish the Torah and I learn the Torah, what happens is I get so excited because my brain has become richer and smarter and cleverer, but my reges, my emotions have changed too. The Pik says, "When I learn Torah, not only is my brain get better, all my body, all my bones, my very being, everything changes." Have you ever noticed people learning Torah in the base medish? They're shuckling and they're moving their hands and they're raising their voices. Why? Why don't they do that in a library when they're learning accountancy or in or in the laborator in the lab when they're learning science? Because when you learn about knowledge, intellect, you don't move your body. But when you learn Torah, which is reggish and head and heart, we move and we dance. Therefore on tora when we learning tora and we finish a tora we sing and we dance because not only we cleverer but our whole goof our [snorts] whole body our whole emotion our whole heart changes. That's one question. The second question is let's go back to what I said at the beginning. When did we get the Torah? When did God give Israel the Torah? So the answer is God, Hashem gave the Torah on day six of when isra 4 and a half months later we receive the Torah on and we celebrate and dance on the on the end of tre. Imagine that we get married on May and we celebrate in September. What kind of thing is that? You get married in May, you dance and celebrate in May. Not four and a half months later, Bena got the Torah on. They should have be we should be celebrating and dancing with the Torah and on notra what's the point? Why? So let's go back to when God first offered Ben Israel the Torah at the very beginning of on the year they left mid Hashem said you want the Torah Benel said they knew nothing they said a very beautiful acceptance but nonetheless a little bit rash they didn't really know what they were accepting they said okay you say it's good we'll take it. It was more of a trust thing. They didn't really know that it was that good. When they got to Hari, God told them, "You have to accept the Torah. You can't back out. And if you do, I'm going to drop the mountain and kill you." Ben is were sort of coerced, forced to make the Torah, and they did. So, when they first were sort of forced into marriage, they got married, but they were not really happy. But then they met the bride. Then they understood how beautiful this woman is, how great her midot are, how nice she is, how well she cooks, etc., etc. And then when the when the man realizes the the the goodness of his wife four and a half four and a half months later or whenever later, then he wants to get then he wants to celebrate again. Ben is got the toy on which is like May time but they for forced they didn't they they accepted it they didn't really know what it was it wasn't sweet for them it was just you have to take it I'll take it ah but four and a half months later they started learning Torah they started appreciating started see the sweetness then they said uhoh we want to start again we want to stop reset and begin again from the beginning and Bena sort of pressed the reset button and sort of made the wedding celebration one more time fresh. But now they were really happy. Simra is at is is when they realized how beautiful, how sweet the Torah is, how much they appreciate. And now they said we have to celebrate on simra after four and a half months when we go past yum kipur and rash sha that we become purified and we want kadusha we finally finally realize and taste the sweetness and now we dance and now we celebrate. So bazat all of us this year we should all be privileged and have the zoot and the merits to be able to dance and sing and celebrate with a all the very test.