Eve of Simhat Torah

It's Simhat Torah tonight - that's the last and most important day of Sukkot. Literally it's the Feast of the Torah. That's when the Jews celebrate the gift of the Torah by God to Moses. It's a very happy feast and pagans are allowed to join in. Helicopters have been flying overhead since morning and security is extremely tight. All the City gates have been closed, as all the roads near the Old City. They estimate 10,000 Jews will congregate at the Wailing Wall this evening. I would love to go and join them but the crowd and the security has dampen my enthusiasm.

I wonder why we christians don't have a feast to celebrate God's Word. Well yes we have Bible Sunday which should be the 1st Sunday of Advent; but frankly hardly any diocese celebrates it at all. And of course you can always say that Christmas is our feast of God's Word coming among us. But it's coming as man, not as a book - something which Ecclesiastes and Baruch had prophesied. So how about it? Start celebrating the gift of the Bible with a group of friends, ask your parish priest to start something, or your prayer group.

Below is the Priestly Blessing at the Wailing Wall on Sunday morning. The priests are those standing closest to the Wall, covered by their prayer shawls, with hands extended and moving side to side in blessing. The cantor sings word by word and the priests repeat after him. The video is pretty jerking - taken from the buildings up across the Wailing Wall. There's also a shot of the security blimp that's always floating above whenever there's a problem with security. At 0.48 see if you can spot me down below in the crowds!!!!



Here's another shorter video clip taken from below. Between 0.10 and 0.13 maybe you can spot me ... directly below the huge black speaker/scaffolding.