Candle Lighting: 6:14 PM EST Montreal - Tzedakah (Charity) and Mitzvah (Good Deed) Reminder
Simchat Torah starts right after this Shabbos and the official candle lighting (from a pre-existing flame) in Montreal is after 7:14pm.
This celebration of joyous dancing with the Torah scrolls is one of Judaism’s most moving moments as we reach the end of the Torah and immediately afterward begin again. We finish with the death of Moses our teacher, who blesses the people before they enter the Promised Land without him.
Moses tells us the Torah is an inheritance for the whole community. But the Torah is unlike an ordinary inheritance. Money can be spent, possessions can be stored and memories can fade. Torah survives only when it is learned, lived, questioned, shared and passed on.
Moses’s greatest legacy was not that he brought the people to a destination. He prepared them to continue without him. Real leadership does not create dependence. It gives others the confidence and responsibility to move forward.
We celebrate not because the story is over, but because it begins again in our hands. This year, may we ask not only what blessings we have inherited, but what blessing we will become for others.
What blessing, value or lesson have you inherited and how will you actively pass it forward this year?
Shabbat Shalom * Chag Sameach * Am Yisrael Chai * Peace