After the end of Simchat Torah, I posted a question: What was your moment this Simchat Torah 5786?
I received hundreds of responses (and you’re welcome to keep sharing!). It was a historic holiday. First, people whose lives had revolved around the hostages, including them in their daily prayers, suddenly experienced a change.
The list of names read during candlelighting prayers by hundreds of thousands of Jewish women around the world grew shorter. Suddenly, in many synagogues, those names were no longer recited—because they were
already hugging their families.
People also shared moving stories about the holiday meals and the dancing with the Torah in the synagogue. Reserve-duty wives wrote how they celebrated Simchat Torah together in a hotel. Bereaved families described their mixed feelings about a holiday that was also the yahrzeit of their loved ones.
Many moshavim and kibbutzim along the northern border came back to life this year, rejoicing once again in the joy of Torah. So too IDF bases across the country (including in Syria!), and of course at the Nova site and the Sderot police station.
We still have many challenges, personal and national, but experiencing salvation reinforces our resilience. Many of you wrote that these good tidings gave you the strength to face your personal struggles and the hope to see better days.
“I’m an older single man,” one wrote, “but now I really feel strongly that for God, finding my other half this year is no big deal. These days, we are seeing more and more of the Jewish people returning to themselves.
Many shared that they celebrated the holiday for the first time, feeling a newfound sense of Jewish identity. I’ll end with the tiniest story, almost unnoticeable, yet so meaningful. Orna from Tel Aviv wrote:
“We don’t usually go to synagogue, but a Torah procession passed right under our building, so we went to the window. I’m not sure my kids have ever seen a Torah scroll in real life, but when we looked together, we all felt moved, and suddenly two words came out of my mouth: This is ours!”
May this year of 5786 bring us much more simchah—and much more Torah.
The real deal
On the eve of Simchat Torah, which was also the eve of the release of the hostages, I was at the Western Wall together with tens of thousands who came to offer a special prayer.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the words I had heard the previous night from Julie Kuperstein, the mother of now-released hostage Bar Avraham: “What has kept me going for two years, even tonight?
I remind myself that my deal is not with Hamas. They want me weak, passive, and despairing. My deal, our deal, is with the Master of the Universe. We have a part in this deal: who we are, how we behave, what we do. And I am not alone—the entire amazing people of Israel are with me in this deal with the Master of the Universe. Thank you!” After those remarks, Julie went back to reciting Psalms.
How wonderful that on the following day, we were able to share in Julie’s joy and in the joy of the other families who saw their loved ones come home. May they all merit a full recovery, physically, emotionally, and spiritually!
Bereshit: the tree was meant to taste like the fruit
In the verses in our parashah describing the creation of trees, our Sages note a subtle yet profound shift in wording. God commanded the creation of “fruit trees producing fruit,” but the earth brought forth only “trees producing fruit.” The tree itself was not a fruit.
This deviation reflects a timeless human tendency: to value outcomes over process. We often focus on reaching goals and overlook the significance of the means by which we pursue them.
A farmer who works his fields all year, plowing, sowing, tending, and then faces a drought may deem the year a failure, even though his toil and devotion remain meaningful in themselves. From the moment of Creation, there has been a distinction between labor and its fruits, between effort and achievement.
Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook explained: “At the beginning of Creation, it was intended that the tree should have the same taste as the fruit. But the earthly existence brought it about that only the taste of the fruit, the final goal, is experienced in its pleasure and splendor.
The earth sinned, denied its essence, limited its strength… and did not give all its hidden potential so that the taste of the tree could be like the taste of its fruit.”
According to God’s command at Creation, the tree — the process — was to be as sweet as the fruit — the outcome. Yet in our physical world, we tend to find joy only in results. We plant trees for their fruit, forgetting that the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves sustain the entire process of growth.
Much of life mirrors this dynamic. We study to earn a degree, to find a job, to make a living, and to afford food. But we spend most of our lives within the “tree” stage: learning, striving, working.
The story of Creation reminds us of a higher vision — a world in which the journey itself carries the sweetness of the destination.
Sivan Rahav Meir is a primetime news anchor on Israeli television with a regular column in Yediot Aharonot and a weekly radio show on Army Radio.