Simchat Torah (“Rejoicing with the Torah”) annual cycle of reading the Torah is completed and begun again after a festival parade of the Torah scrolls.
Simchat Torah festivities begin with the evening service. All the synagogue’s Torah scrolls are removed from the ark and carried around the sanctuary in a series of seven hakafot (circuits). Although each hakafah need only encompass one circuit around the synagogue, the dancing and singing with the Torah often continues much longer, and sometimes overflows from the synagogue onto the streets.
After the processions and the dancing, two scrolls of the Torah are read. The last Parsha of the Torah followed immediately by the first chapter of the Torah, this starts the cycle of reading the Torah from the very first to the last each year.
Simchat Torah happens at sundown on:
| 17 October 2022 | 23 Tishrei 5783 |