Simchas Torah - A Book Of Jewish Thoughts


Simchas Torah - A Book Of Jewish Thoughts

Simchas Torah



LECHAYIM, my brethren, Lechayim, I say,

Health, peace, and good fortune I wish you to-day.

To-day we have ended the Torah once more;

To-day we begin it anew, as of yore.

Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol,

Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll.

The Torah has been our consolation,

Our help in exile and sore privation.

Lost have we all we were wont to prize:

Our holy temple a ruin lies;

Laid waste is the land where our songs we sung;

Forgotten our language, our mother-tongue;

Of kingdom and priesthood are we bereft;

Our Faith is our only treasure left.

God in our hearts, the Law in our hands,

We have wandered sadly through many lands.

We have suffered much; yet, behold, we live

Through the comfort the Law alone can give.

Two thousand years, a little thing when spoken;

Two thousand years tormented, crushed, and broken

Seven and seventy dark generations

Filled up with anguish and lamentations!

Their tale of sorrow did I unfold,

No Simchas Torah to-day we’d hold.

And why should I tell it you all again?

In our bones ’tis branded with fire and pain.

We have sacrificed all. We have given our wealth,

Our homes, our honours, our land, our health,

Our lives—like Hannah77 her children seven—

For the sake of the Torah that came from heaven.

And now, what next? Will they let us be?

Have the nations then come at last to see

That we Jews are men like the rest, and no more

Need we wander homeless as heretofore,

Abused and slandered wherever we go?

Ah! I cannot tell you. But this I know,

That the same God still lives in heaven above,

And on earth the same Law, the same Faith, that we love.

Then fear not, and weep not, but hope in the Lord,

And the sacred Torah, his Holy Word.

Lechayim, my brethren, Lechayim, I say!

Health, peace, and good fortune I wish you to-day.

To-day we have ended the Torah once more;

To-day we begin it again, as of yore.

Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol,

Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll.

J. L. GORDON.

(Trans. Alice Lucas and Helena Frank.)

Excerpt From A Book Of Jewish Thoughts Selected And Arranged By The Chief Rabbi - Dr J.H.Hertz