Simhat Torah

Deuteronomy 33

¹ This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, bade the Israelites farewell before he died. ² He said:

The Lord came from Sinai;
He shone upon them from Seir;
He appeared from Mount Paran,
And approached from Ribeboth-kodesh,
Lightning flashing at them from His right.
³ Lover, indeed, of the people,
Their hallowed are all in Your hand.
They followed in Your steps,
Accepting Your pronouncements,
⁴ When Moses charged us with the Teaching
As the heritage of the congregation of Jacob.
⁵ Then He became King in Jeshurun,
When the heads of the people assembled,
The tribes of Israel together.

⁶ May Reuben live and not die,
Though few be his numbers.

⁷ And this he said of Judah:
Hear, O Lord the voice of Judah
And restore him to his people.
Though his own hands strive for him,
Help him against his foes.

⁸ And of Levi he said:
Let Your Thummim and Urim
Be with Your faithful one,
Whom You tested at Massah,
Challenged at the waters of Meribah;
⁹ Who said of his father and mother,
“I consider them not.”
His brothers he disregarded,
Ignored his own children.
Your precepts alone they observed,
And kept Your covenant.
¹⁰ They shall teach Your laws to Jacob
And Your instructions to Israel.
They shall offer You incense to savor
And whole-offerings on Your altar.
¹¹ Bless, O Lord, his substance,
And favor his undertakings.
Smite the loins of his foes;
Let his enemies rise no more.

¹² Of Benjamin he said:
Beloved of the Lord,
He rests securely beside Him;
Ever does He protect him,
As he rests between His shoulders.

¹³ And of Joseph he said:
Blessed of the Lord be his land
With the bounty of dew from heaven,
And of the deep that couches below;
¹⁴ With the bounteous yield of the sun,
And the bounteous crop of the moons;
¹⁵ With the best from the ancient mountains,
And the bounty of hills immemorial;
¹⁶ With the bounty of earth and its fullness,
And the favor of the Presence in the Bush.
May these rest on the head of Joseph,
On the crown of the elect of his brothers.
¹⁷ Like a firstling bull in his majesty,
He has horns like the horns of the wild-ox;
With them he gores the peoples,
The ends of the earth one and all.
These are the myriads of Ephraim,
Those are the thousands of Manasseh.

¹⁸ And of Zebulun he said:
Rejoice, O Zebulun, on your journeys,
And Issachar, in your tents.
¹⁹ They invite their kin to the mountain,
Where they offer sacrifices of success.
For they draw from the riches of the sea
And the hidden hoards of the sand.

²⁰ And of Gad he said:
Blessed be He who enlarges Gad!
Poised is he like a lion
To tear off arm and scalp.
²¹ He chose for himself the best,
For there is the portion of the revered chieftain,
Where the heads of the people come.
He executed the Lord’s judgments
And His decisions for Israel.

²² And of Dan he said:
Dan is a lion’s whelp
That leaps forth from Bashan.

²³ And of Naphtali he said:
O Naphtali, sated with favor
And full of the Lord’s blessing,
Take possession on the west and south.

²⁴ And of Asher he said:
Most blessed of sons be Asher;
May he be the favorite of his brothers,
May he dip his foot in oil.
²⁵ May your doorbolts be iron and copper,
And your security last all your days.

²⁶ O Jeshurun, there is none like God,
Riding through the heavens to help you,
Through the skies in His majesty.
²⁷ The ancient God is a refuge,
A support are the arms everlasting.
He drove out the enemy before you
By His command: Destroy!
²⁸ Thus Israel dwells in safety,
Untroubled is Jacob’s abode,
In a land of grain and wine,
Under heavens dripping dew.
²⁹ O happy Israel! Who is like you,
A people delivered by the Lord,
Your protecting Shield, your Sword triumphant!
Your enemies shall come cringing before you,
And you shall tread on their backs.

Chapter 34
¹ Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the summit of Pisgah, opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan; ² all Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; the whole land of Judah as far as the Western Sea; ³ the Negeb; and the Plain — the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees — as far as Zoar. ⁴ And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ‘I will assign it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there.”

⁵ So Moses the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, at the command of the Lord. ⁶ He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, near Beth-peor; and no one knows his burial place to this day. ⁷ Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated. ⁸ And the Israelites bewailed Moses in the steppes of Moab for thirty days. The period of wailing and mourning for Moses came to an end. ⁹ Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the Israelites heeded him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁰ Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses — whom the Lord singled out, face to face, ¹¹ for the various signs and portents that the Lord sent him to display in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his courtiers and his whole country, ¹² and for all the great might and awesome power that Moses displayed before all Israel.

Genesis 1

¹ When God began to create heaven and earth — ² the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water — ³ God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day.

⁶ God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” ⁷ God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

⁹ God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good. ¹¹ And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that this was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

¹⁴ God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night; they shall serve as signs for the set times — the days and the years; ¹⁵ and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to dominate the night, and the stars. ¹⁷ And God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, ¹⁸ to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that this was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

²⁰ God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” ²¹ God created the great sea monsters, and all the living creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in swarms, and all the winged birds of every kind. And God saw that this was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, “Be fertile and increase, fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

²⁴ God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so. ²⁵ God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good. ²⁶ And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” ²⁷ And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth.”

²⁹ God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” And it was so. ³¹ And God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Chapter 2
¹ The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. ² On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. ³ And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had done.

Numbers 29

³⁵ On the eighth day you shall hold a solemn gathering; you shall not work at your occupations. ³⁶ You shall present a burnt offering, an offering by fire of pleasing odor to the Lord; one bull, one ram, seven yearling lambs, without blemish; ³⁷ the meal offerings and libations for the bull, the ram, and the lambs, in the quantities prescribed; ³⁸ and one goat for a sin offering — in addition to the regular burnt offering, its meal offering and libation.

³⁹ All these you shall offer to the Lord at the stated times, in addition to your votive and freewill offerings, be they burnt offerings, meal offerings, libations, or offerings of well-being.

Chapter 30
¹ So Moses spoke to the Israelites just as the Lord had commanded Moses.