Opinion
LIVING WITH THE PAIN
Will we dance again?
In Short
Dancing on Simchat Torah taught us to not ignore the hardship of the past year but to experience it alongside the joy of the holiday
How could we dance again? The question hung heavy in the air, like a cloud we couldn’t quite reach, drifting through the dust and fragments of everything shattered on Oct. 7. How could we move when the ground beneath us felt so unstable, when the rhythm that once carried us through life had been stolen, leaving only silence? And yet, on Simchat Torah itself, there we were, standing in that space, dancing with the Torah in our arms, singing with a joy that seemed impossibly far away. How did we dance, even when the world felt split wide open and we stood among the cracks?
There’s a strange and beautiful paradox in our tradition: this dance of brokenness and wholeness. It’s what Simchat Torah has always held for us. The dance comes just after Yom Kippur, after days of reflecting on our failures, our losses, our need for atonement. And yet, we emerge from all that weight and are called to dance, to rejoice with the Torah, as if we’ve left all the brokenness behind. But we know better, don’t we? The brokenness doesn’t disappear; we carry it with us. So how do we dance with it? How do we move forward when we are still holding all those shattered pieces?
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And yet, we do — because this is what our tradition calls us to do. The dance is not about forgetting the pain or pretending everything is OK. It’s about holding the brokenness and still finding a way to move. It’s about recognizing that, even in the midst of our deepest sorrow, there is something that remains whole: our spirit, our ability to keep living, keep breathing, keep stepping forward, even when it feels like the weight of the world is pressing down on us.
How can we dance again? It’s not just a question for Simchat Torah; it’s a question for every moment we face after loss, after tragedy, after the world splits wide open. The Torah shows us that the dance of life isn’t about waiting for everything to be perfect. It’s about moving in the middle of the brokenness, with all the weight we carry. The weight of those who can’t dance anymore, the silence they left behind. We carry that silence with us, not as an absence, but as part of the rhythm, part of the dance.
In our tradition, we speak of God being found in the kol d’mama daka — the slender voice of silence. Sometimes, in the deepest silence, there is a kind of sacred sound, a presence that speaks without words. It’s in that silence where we might find the strength to take that first step. And then we remember that dancing isn’t always about joy. Sometimes, dancing is an act of survival. Sometimes, it’s a way of saying, “I’m still here. I’m still alive.” It’s about reclaiming our bodies, our space, our right to exist in the world despite everything that’s tried to take that from us. Dancing becomes an act of defiance, a way of refusing to let the darkness win.
There’s a story about King David, who danced before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought into Jerusalem. He danced wildly, without restraint, in a way that made others uncomfortable. But David’s dance was not just a celebration — it was an act of vulnerability, of laying everything bare before God, of saying, “This is who I am, in all my brokenness and all my wholeness.” His dance wasn’t neat; it wasn’t polished. It was raw, and it was real.
Maybe that’s what our dance needed to be — not a perfect, choreographed expression of joy, but a raw, messy, vulnerable movement toward life. We danced because we refused to let the darkness win. We danced because in the act of moving, we created a new rhythm, a new song. And as we danced, we were not alone. Even when it felt like the world had stopped, there were others beside us, stepping into the same uncertain rhythm, finding their way back to life. This is the power of the collective song — the recognition that while each of us is carrying our own piece of the brokenness, together we are weaving something whole.
Simchat Torah teaches us this. The Torah is not a perfect story. It’s filled with broken moments, with human failures, with exile and wandering. And yet, at the end of every year, we roll the scroll back and begin again. We start with Bereshit — with the beginning. And in those very first verses, we read about tohu va’vohu — chaos and void. When God created the heavens and the Earth, the Earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And from that darkness, from that chaos, God spoke and said, “Let there be light.” And the light wasn’t created to chase away the darkness; it was spun from it. The light came from the very chaos itself. Creation was born not out of perfection, but out of brokenness. And this is how we are called to create too.
That’s the dance. We acknowledge the darkness, we hold the silence, and then we take a step. And another. And slowly, the pieces begin to move together. Slowly, the rhythm returns.
How could we not dance? How could we not, when so many are still standing in the brokenness and yet choosing life, choosing light? How could we not dance when the soldiers stand on the front lines, their boots heavy with dust, their hearts heavy with the weight of a country on their shoulders, and yet they continue to move forward? We dance for them. For the ones who hold the line, who carry the lives of everyone behind them, even when their own lives feel fractured and fragile. How could we not dance when their strength keeps us all standing?
How could we not dance for the wives who watch their husbands disappear into the chaos, who wake up each day not knowing when or if they will return? They carry their own brokenness, their own silence, but they still wake up, they still light the candles, they still keep the flame of hope burning. We dance for them. For the ones who wait, for the ones who carry the weight of absence and still manage to keep going. We dance because they have chosen not to let the silence consume them.
How could we not dance for the children, the sons and daughters who don’t understand why their fathers and mothers have to leave, why the world feels so different, so heavy, so full of things they can’t name? But they continue to play, they continue to laugh, they continue to find joy even in the smallest moments. We dance for them. For the ones who remind us that life still pulses even in the darkest times. We dance because they have not lost the light in their eyes.
How could we not dance for the evacuees, who left their homes, their lives, their memories behind, who carry their entire world in a single bag but still hold on to hope, still believe in a return, still carry the dream of rebuilding, of going back? We dance for them. For the ones who left everything but refuse to let go of their future. We dance because they have not given up on the promise of home.
How could we not dance for those who have lost sons and daughters, for those whose hearts have been torn open by grief, and yet they still stand? How could we not dance when their love continues to pulse through every moment of their lives, even in the face of such immense loss? We dance for them because even in their brokenness, they continue to carry the light of the ones they lost.
How could we not dance for the wounded soldiers, those who have given so much of themselves on the battlefield, who carry the weight of both visible and invisible scars, yet still stand tall, still carry the strength of a thousand battles within them? We dance for them because their courage teaches us what it means to keep moving forward, no matter how heavy the burden, no matter how deep the wounds.
How could we not dance for the Nova survivors, for those who lived through the unthinkable, who carry the weight of those who didn’t make it, who wake up every day with the memories but still choose to keep living, still choose to hold on to the light they can find? We dance for them, for the ones who carry the stories of the lost and the stories of their own survival. We dance because they remind us that even after the darkest night, the dawn still comes.
How can we not dance for the hostages, for those who are still held in the darkness, for their families who wake up every day with an emptiness that words can never touch, waiting for a sign, for a miracle, for the day their loved ones come home? We dance because they still believe, because their love refuses to be extinguished even in the deepest void.
How could we not dance when so many continue to stand, when so many continue to fight, to love, to hope, to live? We danced because they are still here. Because we are still here. And together, we will keep dancing in the face of everything that has tried to take that dance from us.
How could we not dance when the music of life continues to play, when the light of the broken still shines so brightly? We dance for them, for all of them, for us, for the broken and the whole. Because even in the face of everything that has tried to take it from us, we danced.
Jacob Schimmel is the father of three sons who have served in this war; he lives in Jerusalem, Israel.