Why do we rejoice with Torah scrolls during this season of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot? Would it not have been far more logical to celebrate with our Torah in the springtime around Shavuot, when we commemorate the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. What does our joy in the Torah have to do with the kingship of Rosh Hashana, the fast of Yom Kippur, or the four species of Sukkot?

A meaningful response to this question must start with our understanding that the seven circuits (hakafot) that we make with the Torah scrolls around the sanctuary must be related to the seven circuits we make with the four species around the bima on Hoshana Raba, the last day of Sukkot. The Jerusalem Talmud Sukka (chapter 4, law 3) explains the circuits of the four species as a memorial to our conquest of Jericho, whose defensive walls came tumbling down when the Israelite army encircled the city to the blowing of the shofar. Midrash Tehillim (17, 5) suggests that when the Israelites encircle the altar of the Holy Temple with their lulavim (palm branches), the angels in heaven rejoice, declaring Israel’s victory over the gentiles and God’s triumph in this world. Rabbeinu Behaya of 13th-century Spain maintains that the circuits on Hoshana Raba portend the fall of the kingdom of Edom. All these sources suggest that the lulav symbolizes a sword and that the circuits express our ultimate victory in the final battle against those forces who would destroy us, the biblical Armageddon or battle of Gog and Magog, the war against the forces of darkness.

Remembering that on Rosh Hashana we prayed for the triumphant rule of our God of love and peace over the entire world, and that the terua shofar sound can also be a summons to war (Numbers 10:9,10), it makes sense that on Sukkot we declare — and rejoice in — our ultimate victory.

But what about Simhat Torah? Why the hakafot with Torah scrolls then? It is recorded that as early as 11th-century France (in the days of Rashi) the custom was to remove all the Torah scrolls from the Holy Ark on Shemini Atzeret, place them on the bima from which the Torah was publicly read, and have the congregation declare in unison, “You [Oh Lord] have revealed to us knowledge that the Lord He is God and there is none beside Him.” The cantor would then continue to chant the haftara read on Simhat Torah (Kings 1,8), in which King Solomon beseeches the Almighty to accept the prayers of the gentiles, who would come to the Holy Temple in order that “all the nations of the earth shall know your name and shall be in awe of You as is your nation Israel.”

From this emerged by the first third of the 16th century the actual surrounding of the bima with Torah scrolls for seven hakafot on Simhat Torah, a custom that has continued until today.

I would maintain that the circuits around the bima on Sukkot and Simhat Torah are a most fitting conclusion to our High Holy Day festivals. We began our memorial day of the creation of the world with a prayer for God’s kingship over the entire world; on Yom Kippur we recreated the service of the high priest in the Holy Temple, which would forgive and purify all of humanity and would become “a house of prayer for all the nations of the world.” We then built and moved into our sukkot, the modest dwellings that symbolize the divine protection we enjoyed in the Sinai desert and express the one real request we make of God: “Allow me to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and to see the sweetness of the Lord.” This ideal situation of a world redeemed with peace and in which each individual is comforted and encompassed by the rays of divine splendor and protection can come about in one of two ways: We can either achieve victory by struggling through a difficult and perhaps even bloody battle against the forces of evil or by our convincing the gentile world to accept the ethics and morality of our holy Torah. On Hoshana Raba we raise our palm branches in military victory; on Simhat Torah we raise our Torah scrolls as the symbol of our preferred means to achieve victory, by teaching the world to accept the truth of a God of love and peace.

From this perspective it becomes clear why Simhat Torah — and the conclusion of the Torah reading — takes place on Shemini Atzeret/Simhat Torah rather than Shavuot. On Shavuot we celebrate the Torah that was given to the Jewish people on Mount Sinai; on Simhat Torah we celebrate the Torah that we must teach to the world at large. Indeed, Rabbi Abraham Gershon Kitov, brother-in-law of the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, describes his discovery upon his arrival in Jerusalem in 1746 that the Arab community had been invited to participate in the Simhat Torah festivities. Such public Simhat Torah celebrations with gentiles also took place in communities in Italy, France, Turkey, and Greece and were often the occasion for special prayers for the non-Jewish dignitaries.

Simhat Torah is therefore a fitting conclusion to the period in which we pray for the universal acceptance of God’s moral and ethical commandments, the necessary prelude to our period of peace and redemption.

May we all experience the joys of Simhat Torah during the whole of this year of 5767 and forever after.