By Morriah Kaplan

The Pashat Hashavuah is coming at you early this week because here's a whole bunch coming up (Shmini Atzeret! Simchat Torah! Vezot Habracha! Bereishit!!). I'm going to provide a brief rundown of everything and then give some more specific thoughts. It may be kind of long - lots to cover! - so hang in there.

Shmini Atzeret starts tonight (Wed. 9/25) and ends tomorrow night (Thurs. 9/26). Pretty much, after celebrating seven days of sukkot, we get one more day which is an independent holiday, and that's called Shmini Atzeret. If you're lucky enough to live in the Diaspora, you get another day to celebrate after that, called Simchat Torah, which starts tomorrow night (Thurs. 9/26) and ends Friday night (9/27). These two days are supposed to be pretty joyous, to celebrate our successful atonement after Yom Kippur. For some more info on these holidays, here's a handy explanation.

On Simchat Torah, which is celebrating the conclusion of our annual Torah-reading cycle, we read the parsha Vezot Habracha, which is the very lastparsha in the book of Dvarim. Immediately afterwards, we read the first parsha of the Torah, Bereishit, and start the whole cycle over again.

Vezot Habracha recounts the blessings that Moses gives to all twelve tribes just before he dies. Then it talks about how great Moses is and how there will never be another prophet like him. And then we get to reminisce one last time about Moses smashing the tablets after discovering the Jews worshipping the golden calf, and then that's the end of the Torah! For more info, click here.

Then we read Bereishit, which, as many of you probably know, recounts the creation of the heavens and the earth. God creates the darkness and light, sun, moon, stars, and all that.

So, sort of a weird progression, amirite? Moses gives out blessings, then he dies,

then we talk about that *awkward* time when the Jews created a golden calf and worshipped it, and then we start all over again. Some people have suggested that this cycle reminds us that we never really can just finish and move on. The incident with the golden calf may be behind us, but we're still not allowed to forget about it, and as soon as it's finally over, it all begins again, and what was just behind us is now in front of us, ad infinitum.

Particularly coming after Yom Kippur, when we are spending time both reflecting and letting go, this parsha is a good reminder that what we shouldn't just pack up and move on, even if we've apologized and atoned and forgiven and all that. Though we have atoned, we should still be engaged in a continual (maybe endless) process of reflection and growth, and what we've let go of should also inform the goal we're working towards.

In the movement, we know that even we finish something -- machaneh and the summer are good examples, since I imagine they're still fresh in many people's minds -- there's still more to be done, there's still more ahead of us, whether that's another summer, or the ken, or kvutzah relationships, or, ya know, just changing the world in general. And maybe that seems like a daunting thing, but I'm going to argue that's why we get two whole days of awesome celebration!! Though it's not really the end of anything, and we should always be moving forward, it's also good to take a minute and recognize how far we've come, what we've accomplished, and what we're excited about, before the next big push.

So with that, I hope you all think about something you want to celebrate over the next two days, and take a minute to reflect before we hit the ground running for the year ahead.