A couple of years ago on Yom Yerushalayim, I stood on a rooftop overlooking the Kotel and the festivities below. For a brief moment, I felt as though I had a glimpse of what Hashem “sees”: tens of thousands of Jews singing and dancing in circles in celebration of Jerusalem’s reunification. At first I watched from above, captivated by the beauty of it all – the singing, the movement, the unity. But after a few moments I felt an almost instinctive need to run downstairs and join the dancing. I no longer wanted to observe the circle; I wanted to be part of it.
That moment gave me my personal “bumper sticker”: “b’toch ami ani rokedet, Among my people, I dance.” The phrase was inspired by the Shunammite woman’s words to Elisha’s servant, “mitoch ami anochi yoshevet, I dwell among my own people” (Melachim II 4:13). I am part and parcel of my people.
On Simchat Torah, Jews dance in circles. It is one of the most recognizable scenes in Jewish life: Torah scrolls lifted high, children on shoulders, singing that grows louder with each hakafah. At first glance it appears spontaneous and festive. But perhaps the most important detail is the shape itself. Why circles?
Judaism repeatedly returns to circular forms. Mourners eat round foods – eggs and lentils – after a funeral. Brides circle their grooms beneath the chuppah. On Sukkot we circle the bimah with hoshanot. Jewish time itself is cyclical: Shabbat returns each week, holidays each year, and the Torah reading cycle ends only to begin again immediately with Bereishit. The circle represents continuity and infinity – no beginning, no end, every point connected to another. Unlike a straight line, a circle never truly breaks.
This is why dance occupies such an important place in Jewish spiritual life. In the final chapters of Tehillim, David HaMelech writes: “Yehalelu shmo b’machol, Praise His Name with dance” (Tehillim 149:3), and again, “Halleluhu b’tof u’machol, Praise Him with drum and dance” (Tehillim 150:4). The word machol does not simply mean dance – it refers specifically to circular dancing, communal and collective. Jewish joy is not meant to remain confined to the individual. We praise Hashem not only with words or thoughts, but with our entire being, together.
Since October 7th, Simchat Torah has been emotionally transformed. A day once associated almost entirely with celebration now carries grief, memory, heroism, and national pain. Many Jews vow, “We will dance again!” And in the same breath they ask how and where the strength and the courage will come from. Perhaps Judaism’s answer lies precisely in the circle.
At the mourner’s meal, we eat round foods because grief moves in cycles. Sorrow is not linear – it returns in waves, revisits memory, and slowly becomes integrated into life. Simchat Torah presents the other side of that same truth. The circle of dancing does not erase pain; it carries it. We do not dance because suffering has vanished. We dance because despair does not have the final word.
The Talmud offers a remarkable image of redemption: “In the future, the righteous will sit in a circle, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, will be among them” (Ta’anit 31a). Redemption is imagined not as a throne room or a battlefield, but as a dance circle – no one at the head, every individual facing the Divine directly while remaining part of a greater whole. On Simchat Torah, scholar and child, religious and secular, wounded and joyful – all move together. The circle dissolves hierarchy. Torah belongs not to elites, but to the entire nation.
We conclude the Torah with the death of Moshe Rabbeinu, a moment of uncertainty and loss. Yet before we leave shul, we begin again with Bereishit. Judaism refuses to allow the Torah story to end. Every ending contains the possibility of renewal.
This feels particularly urgent today. The Jewish people are still grieving. Families carry unbearable loss. Soldiers remain on the front lines. Entire communities have been permanently changed. And yet the Torah circle continues – not because we are naïve, not because the pain has disappeared, but because Jewish history has always demanded the courage to begin again.
This is the deepest message of Simchat Torah. Jewish continuity is not built through study, memory, or belief alone. It is also built through movement – through physically joining the circle of the Jewish people and refusing to step outside it. On Simchat Torah, we dance holding the same Torah our grandparents held, singing words Jews have sung across continents and centuries. For a few moments, individual stories become part of something eternal.
May we merit to see the fulfillment of David HaMelech’s words: “Hafachta mispedi l’machol li, You transformed my mourning into dance” (Tehillim 30:12). May the circles of grief that have marked these painful years be transformed into circles of comfort, unity, and enduring joy.
The Torah circle never breaks. The Torah is eternal. And so are we.
Jen Airley made Aliyah in 2006 to Beit Shemesh with her husband and children. When their son Binyamin was killed Nov. 18, 2023 fighting in Gaza, she went from being an exercise physiologist and personal trainer to international speaker and ultimately founder of Beit Binyamin, a retreat center in Tzfat for those directly affected by the war. She can be reached through the website BeitBinyamin.org.