The Before and The After, The Sadness and The Joy

By Hazzan Jenna Greenberg.

The Before and The After. These two time frames, pervade our lives daily in various ways. 

Most recently, I have been thinking of these two opposites in light of a new book I started reading by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, When We See You Again. The book is written in memory of her son, Hersh, who was taken hostage from the Nova Festival on October 7, 2023 and murdered by Hamas during his captivity. She writes of the Before, the 23 years of Hersh’s life, and the After, the moment that his captivity began and everything he endured thereafter, a story that most of us are quite familiar with, especially as many of us have Chicago connections with the family.

I began reading this book on the second day of Sukkot, my brother’s first yahrzeit. Despite the holiday being labeled as Z’man Simchateinu, the season of our happiness, for me, these timeframes of the Before and the After ring very true. And while this may be true of anyone who has lost a loved one, it rings especially true in light of unexpected tragic loss, as was the case for my brother as well.

We are heading into the final fall holidays this weekend. Shemini Atzeret stands as a unique holiday, an epilogue to Sukkot. It too is biblically labeled as Z’man Simchateinu. Yet even on this joyous holiday, we add Yizkor, the second memorial service of 5787, where we remember all of those we have lost. Despite the happy theme that the Torah labels this holiday with, we pause to remember the souls of our departed. We also read a selection from Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, a biblical text that grapples with the existential meaning and futility of human life. The emotions of joy and sadness merge on this holiday. 

And then we turn from the melancholy and retrospection to pure and utter joy with Simchat Torah, the concluding holiday of this season. Still labeled as Z’man Simchateinu, with Simcha, joy, in its name, it also contains both ends of the emotional spectrum. While proud of completing the annual cycle of reading the Torah, built into that is a brief moment of sadness, another year passed, a closing of this cycle Before a new one begins…almost instantaneously, as we begin the Torah once again right After finishing it.

Simchat Torah gives us a sense of hope, a fresh start, a new beginning. These themes, the Before and the After, the sadness and the joy, they represent the cycle of life and all of the emotions that life throws at us. As we conclude these fall chaggim, the Prologue of holidays before launching the annual Torah reading cycle for 5787, I wish for all of us to have the ability and strength to ride the emotional waves that cross our hearts throughout this new year. 

This Thursday Thought is dedicated in memory of my brother, Jeremy Greenberg z”l on his first yahrzeit.