Simcha with the Torah

When I was younger, all it took was one year. In that time, Simchat Torah went from being one of my favorite holidays to my least liked one.

What happened in those 365 days (or 354 if we're going to lunar on the calendar as is the Jewish tradition) to so drastically change my attitude towards the renewal of the Torah reading cycle?

I turned 12.

When I became a woman in the Jewish sense of the word (which was at least a decade before I became a real adult woman in the psychological sense), I was no longer allowed to enter the men's section of the synagogue. My very presence would be considered immodest. When I entered through the back and hung out behind the metal folding chairs, very far from the dancing up front, I was chased out by male contemporaries with shouts of, "You're not allowed in here! Get out!" as though they were protecting their clubhouse from cooties.

"Fine," I said, backtracking, "but can you meet me in the lobby and bring me some candy?"

At least they were kind enough to do that. But they were not yet B'nai Mitzvah so perhaps this minimal amount of contact between the genders was still permitted.

I sat in the women's section with my mother and older sister, glumly eating my candy. A year earlier, I had been in the thick of things, dancing with my uncle and the Torahs that had been removed from the ark for the occasion. Now I was stuck behind the mechitza, forced to watch others have fun instead of getting to participate in the action. Yet aside from my age, I didn't feel any different. I wasn't any taller or more mature. I wasn't less inclined to jump around and make noise. (It seems that this last inclination will never go away- no matter how much cartilage I don't have, I will always jump up and down when I'm excited.) But none of that mattered- even if I hadn't qualitatively changed and become a lady, I was going to be treated as though I had.

One woman, noticing my obvious unhappiness, leaned forward and tried to cheer me up. "Don't worry sweetie. It will be different when you have a husband and children dancing on the other side." A few other women nodded in agreement. I stood up and asked my mother if I could have the keys and go home. If it was going to be at least a decade before I could again enjoy Simchat Torah, at least I was going to wait on the couch with a good book.

Until I went away to college, that's exactly what I did. I would go to synagogue for the start of services and then leave to read. Some of my friends were having fun at Chaim Berlin, a men's yeshiva in Flatbush, but I wouldn't join them. We had been warned against attending at school. Inappropriate things were said to happen outside the building on Simchat Torah. I think guys and girls might've even talked as they leaned against the parked cars. Anyway, I didn't want to get in trouble so I stayed home with Thomas Hardy.

This started to change when I went to college. Though the mechitza remained up at the Hillel's celebration, the women were actually given a Torah or two to dance with. I had never been so close to a Torah before since my bat mitzvah was simply a party, held on a Sunday in a catering hall, not a shul. It's embarassing for me to admit this but I was actually a little overcome to be so close to the scroll that had been governing my life since birth. This marked the last time I could definitely feel the presence of my soul but even that may have been heartburn.

This year, as I have for last few years, I've participated in egalitarian services, which means that involvement is not only circumscribed by enthusiam (or lack thereof), not gender. And these days my enthusiasm has admittedly waned, especially when it comes to Jewish ritual. So I was surprised when I felt it ressurrected, at least in part this past Simchat Torah. As I recalled a time when I had wanted to join in but wasn't allowed, I felt blessed to be able to "dance" in the presence of friends and the Torah.

(There it is- I felt it- my soul that is. Then again, I ate very late that night. It still could've been heartburn.)