Simchat Torah 

Mark Podwal (b. 1945)
Digitial archival pigment print on paper
7 7/16 x 7 9/16″
USA, 2020
© Mark Podwal

Simchat Torah, “The Rejoicing of the Torah,” is the day following the feast of Sukkot when the annual cycle of the Torah reading is completed and begins again. The holiday, not mentioned in the Torah or the Talmud (commentative and interpretive writings), came into being in the Middle Ages when weekly readings of the Torah on an annual cycle became common practice. During the evening service, all the Torah scrolls are removed from the Torah ark and congregants carrying the scrolls circle the synagogue seven times. Those people reading from the concluding and beginning portions of the Torah would be escorted with lit candles and torches. A custom which originated in sixteenth-century Europe had children waving paper flags join the procession. Podwal’s interpretation depicts another custom—affixing to the top of children’s flags an apple with a hole carved out for a lighted candle to symbolize the light of the Torah. Nowadays, Jews no longer march with candles and torches. More common is the tradition of throwing treats for the children to gather because the Lord’s “commandments are sweeter than honey” (Psalms 119:103).