ONE DANCE STEP AT A TIME

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In his 2016 book Essays on Ethics, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote, “A people that can know insecurity and still feel joy is one that can never be defeated, for its spirit can never be broken nor its hope destroyed.”

This year, as Simchat Torah draws near, we are painfully reminded that joy and suffering often coexist. While it is a staple of the human condition for Jews, this paradox echoes relentlessly throughout our history.

In the diaspora, we will feel this contrast differently. Shmini Atzeret—a day marked by solemnity with Yizkor and the prayer for rain—falls on the anniversary of October 7th. Only the second evening transitions into the joy of Simchat Torah.

In Israel, however, the two days merge into one, with the solemnity of Shmini Atzeret intertwined with the joy of Simchat Torah. This year, embracing the usual high spirits will be incredibly challenging for Israelis. The weight of national grief hangs heavy; indeed, no Simchat Torah will ever be the same again.

When we danced with the Torahs last year, despite knowing that a terrible attack was unfolding, the full extent of the horror was not yet clear. It was only after Simchat Torah ended that the devastating truth began to emerge: 1,200 people tortured, murdered, and mutilated; families torn apart; and hostages dragged into Gaza.

In the months since, every painful detail has come to light, making it nearly impossible to embrace the unrestrained joy that typically defines Simchat Torah. How can we celebrate when every smile is shadowed by memory, and every song tinged with sorrow?

And yet, my late mother’s story comes to mind—her first Simchat Torah after the Holocaust, celebrated in the city of her birth: Rotterdam, Holland. It offers a profound lesson for us today.

My mother was born in 1941, a year after my grandparents married during the Nazi occupation. The Nazis invaded Holland in May 1940 and began deporting Jews to concentration camps in 1942​.

Fearing for their lives, my grandparents went into hiding, spending more than two years in a cramped space behind a closet in the home of a gentile friend. My grandfather, active in the Dutch resistance, emerged only at night to carry out covert missions against the Nazis—knowing the risks but refusing to submit to despair.

Meanwhile, my mother was taken in by a Christian couple who raised her as their own, shielding her from the terrors outside. After the war, they returned her to her parents.

When the Nazis were defeated by the Allies in May 1945, Jewish life in Rotterdam began to re-emerge, although only a fraction of the community remained—75% of Dutch Jewry, more than 100,000 people, had perished in Auschwitz, Sobibor, and other camps​.

That fall, the synagogue reopened, and Simchat Torah was celebrated once more. The Torah scrolls my grandfather had hidden with gentile friends were retrieved. Miraculously, Rabbi Levie “Lou” Vorst, who had survived Bergen-Belsen and the infamous “Lost Train,” stood at the helm of the diminished community.

But the celebration was bittersweet. Almost everyone in the synagogue had lost parents, siblings, spouses, or children. My grandparents had lost their parents, siblings, and their second child, my uncle Yitzchak, who had died of malnutrition during the war.

And yet, they danced. Survivors—many without homes or families—clung to the Torah scrolls as if their lives depended on it. My mother, only four years old, stood quietly in the synagogue, receiving candy from weeping survivors. With each piece placed in her open mouth, the message was clear: the future must be sweet, even when the past has been unbearably bitter.

When she was born in 1941, during the Nazi occupation, her parents named my mother Miriam Chana, but they also added a third name: Tikva—hope. Naming her Tikva was a bold act of defiance and a statement of faith that they would live to see better days.

Many Dutch Jews from Rotterdam later made their way to Israel, realizing the ultimate Tikva—the dream of building a new life in the Jewish homeland.

Today, some of my mother’s friends from Rotterdam reside at Beth Juliana, a residential retirement complex in Herzliya for Dutch immigrants. But even there, the echoes of violence persist. Just two weeks ago, during Yom Kippur, a Hezbollah drone from Lebanon struck the building.

Though no one was injured, the drone destroyed an apartment filled with precious heirlooms and decades of memories. Miraculously, the resident had sought shelter moments before the impact—a stark reminder that even now, nearly eighty years after the Holocaust, the shadow of antisemitic hatred still looms over Israel​.

As we mark the first anniversary of October 7th, I find myself returning to the image of those weeping survivors dancing with the Torahs in Rotterdam. If they could dance, surely we can too.

But just like them, our dancing this year will be different. Maybe it will be slower, or perhaps more enthusiastic—but whatever it is, it will be infused with memory, sorrow, and, most importantly, defiance. Our celebrations will not deny the pain but embrace it, just as my mother’s community did all those years ago.

The joy of Simchat Torah is not naïve happiness; it is the joy that comes from standing together, united in faith, knowing that despite everything, we are still here. Just as my grandparents emerged from hiding to rebuild, and just as the Torahs were salvaged from the ruins of Rotterdam, we too will lift the Torahs this Simchat Torah and say to our enemies: We are still here.

And we will hope. For without hope, there is no future. My grandparents named their daughter Tikva, believing in a day when evil would be defeated. We, too, must carry the torch of hope into the future. We will dance, and we will cry.

But above all, we will hope. Because even after the darkest of nights, the sun will rise again. And when it does, we will be ready to rebuild—one dance step at a time.