Two weeks ago, my Partner in Torah and I completed Sefer Bereishis with Rashi. I thought how appropriate it was to be making a siyum during the Yomim Noraim, as we approach Simchas Torah.
Throughout our learning, I was always surprised by how many new insights I could find in the text, and by how many questions I had that I had never had before. And it’s probably true that if we would start over and learn it again, I would come up with more insights and more questions.
We do a lot of circling, the Jewish people. The Sefer Torah is a scroll. Simchas Torah dancing circles the bimah. We daven from a machzor on Y”T — machzor means cycle.
Every year the calendar of events is the same but not the same. Because we are not the same.
Some of the most breathtaking words I’ve learned are the first four in the Hadran, the series of tefillos recited at a siyum (on a masechta of Mishnayos/Gemara). Hadran alach v’hadrach alan – we will return to you and you will return to us. These words address the Torah that was learned: “This isn’t good-bye, it’s until we meet again. Because we will.”
During a Pirkei Avos discussion group this summer, a friend shared that she finds herself working on the same challenges year after year, no matter how many times she’s focused on them in the past. This led to a discussion about how we each have our tikkun, a struggle or character flaw that invites work throughout our lives in different situations. Each of us has struggles that make us feel like, Here we go again… But when we come back to the same struggle a year later, and another year later, it’s to a different degree, or from a different angle, or with new knowledge and tools.
Hadran alach v’hadrach alan. I will return to you — I will keep coming back to reach deeper levels of understanding and self-understanding. And you will return to me — you will find me when I need you most, as a message from the parsha, as chizuk from a friend, as a shiur I decide to go to last minute, or as a new insight into myself that helps me grow.
Wishing you a good Y”T! I hope you are able to enjoy yourself and daven well, wherever you find yourself! Remember that the sukkah is a holy place to daven or just to be!
