After death, creation: Simchat Torah in the shadow of October 7

One of the most familiar customs of Simchat Torah is also one of the strangest. The moment we finish reading the Torah, we begin it again. We read the final verses of Deuteronomy, describing the death of Moses, and almost immediately afterwards we read the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The standard explanation is straightforward and beautiful. We begin the Torah again immediately after completing it in order to demonstrate that Torah study never ends. We do not “finish” the Torah and put it aside; the moment we reach its conclusion, we return to its beginning, expressing our lifelong commitment to Torah and our recognition that there is always more to learn.

That explanation certainly captures something essential about Simchat Torah. But perhaps there is another way to understand this remarkable transition, one that has acquired profound significance in the years since October 7.

To see it, we need only pay attention to what we actually read at the end of Deuteronomy and what we read immediately afterward at the beginning of Genesis.

The Torah ends with death. Moses, the greatest leader the Jewish people has ever known, dies. The people are devastated, and the Torah tells us that “the Israelites bewailed Moses in the steppes of Moab for thirty days” (Deuteronomy 34:8).

This is not merely the grief of Moses’ family or of a small circle of disciples. It is national mourning. An entire people stops to grieve the loss of the leader who brought them out of Egypt, stood with them at Sinai, and guided them through the wilderness.

The Torah then pays Moses the highest possible tribute: “Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses” (Deuteronomy 34:10). And with that, the Torah comes to an end. It ends not in celebration, but with death, absence and a nation confronting an enormous loss.

And then, within minutes, we hear the words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The movement could hardly be more striking. Death is followed by creation; mourning is followed by life; an ending is followed immediately by a beginning.

Judaism does not deny death, rush past mourning or pretend that loss is insignificant. The Torah gives Moses’ death the space it deserves, records the grief of the people and acknowledges the magnitude of what has been lost.

But it refuses to allow death to be the final word.

And that is a profound message for us this Simchat Torah, three years after the massacre of October 7.

For generations, Simchat Torah was associated almost exclusively with joy: dancing with the Torah, singing, children waving flags, synagogues filled with celebration. Then, on Simchat Torah 5784, the day itself became inseparable from horror, massacre, hostage-taking, destruction and national grief.

Three years later, we cannot celebrate Simchat Torah as though that day never happened. Nor should we. The death of Moses and the national mourning that follows now speak to us in a way they did not before, because we too know what it means for an entire people to feel that its world has suddenly been torn apart.

But Simchat Torah does not end there. After the account of Moses’ death, after the mourning, after the recognition that something irreplaceable has been lost, we open another scroll and begin with Bereishit. We move from death to creation.

That movement offers a powerful model for Israel after October 7. In the midst of tragedy and loss, Israelis began to create anew: devastated communities began rebuilding, displaced families returned home, wounded soldiers fought to reconstruct their lives, and bereaved families somehow found ways to continue living while carrying unbearable grief. Volunteers built extraordinary networks of support, schools reopened, businesses resumed, weddings were celebrated, babies were born and homes were rebuilt.

None of this erases what happened. A new life does not replace a life that was taken, and rebuilding does not undo destruction. But creation is the refusal to allow destruction to determine the future.

That may be the message of Simchat Torah we need to hear this year. The Jewish response to tragedy is not to pretend that the tragedy did not occur, nor is it to leave the dead behind. We remember them, mourn them and carry them with us, while refusing to let death become the conclusion of the story.

The sequence of the Torah readings says it all. We read: “And Moses died there.” We mourn the loss, we acknowledge the absence, and then we turn immediately to the words: “In the beginning God created.”

Three years after October 7, those two verses belong together in our national consciousness. We know death, and we know mourning. But we also know rebuilding, renewal and the stubborn Jewish determination to create life in the aftermath of destruction.

Thus, perhaps we begin the Torah again not only because Torah study never ends, but because Jewish life itself must always begin again. The movement from Deuteronomy to Genesis teaches us that even after profound loss, the Jewish response is to remember, to mourn—and then, in the spirit of Bereishit, to create anew.

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