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Forum -> Yom Tov / Holidays -> Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh, Fast Days, and other Days of Note

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amother

OP ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:38 am

A yom tov like simchas torah.

How do we women celebrate the torah if we don't have a dh who goes to learn?

amother

Poppy

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:39 am

We live by the Torah! And we learn it ourselves.

bookstore15

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 8:43 am

We all have the Torah! Torah isn't just gemara, and I'm sure you interact with Torah every day. Think about how many halacha, hashkafa and mussar ideas come up every day, and you follow them, because you were at har sinai too!
I can tell my life would be so much emptier if I wasn't following the Torah. Hope this helps.
Have a great Yom tov!

zaq ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:32 am

שמע בני מוסר אביך ואל תטוש תורת אמך

TBH I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you at a loss because you don't learn, or because your children can't go to shul with their father and dance with the Torah? Are you trying to connect to Simchas Torah specifically or to Torah in general, for yourself or simply to let your children have a good time like all the children whose dads dance with them on their shoulders and herd them under the tallis for kol hanearim?

The Torah was given to all of us. If you show your children that you are involved in Torah and rejoicing in it, they will, too. Look up Torat Imecha, an ou.org online learning project of, by and for women. There are others, too. For one-on-one there's Partners in Torah, among others. It's a little late to prep very much for this ST but you can learn at least a little something to share with your children at the YT table. And encourage your kids to share what they learned in school, too.

amother

Bluebell

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:39 am

100s of men don't learn much Torah.
Torah is lifeeeeeee the way we live our every day, the life you pass on to your children etc. learning the words is one small aspect.
In fact on Simchas Torah we dance with a closed Torah!! We don't spend the night studying Torah like on shavuos! We barely even open it! This is exactly the message, that now it's not about the words. Some know more and some know less, but we all have and love the Torah

amother

Nectarine

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:40 am

I personally read a portion of the weeks partial each week and I’m looking forward to finishing a year worth of doing that!

amother

Daffodil ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:40 am

We live by the Torah. We are celebrating the way we live our life and the connection we have to HKBH. I connected to simchas torah prior to being married so I don't know why you wouldn't be able to.

amother

Snapdragon

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 12:18 pm

I'm a single mother too and honestly I'm struggling with yt too
My kids don't want to go to shul without a father ( they don't want their father but they wish they had step father or something)
And I feel dumb going to shul
It's weird to watch other men and boys dance
It's lonely as I don't have any frum relatives in this state
It's yt ...chat simchaseinu but it doesn't feel that way

I'm sorry I hope I didn't hijack the threat Sad

amother

Hydrangea ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 1:32 pm

Standing around feeling dumb and out of it isn't the sole purview of single moms. It's the experience of all women, married or not, in shuls where women don't have the opportunity to do anything but watch the men celebrate. The shuls in which women have the opportunity to do more than press their noses to the mechitzah and watch like beggar children at the window of a bakery or toy store are few and far between. Why? Were we not ALL at Har Sinai and are we not ALL obligated to live by the Torah? So don't let women hold a sefer Torah--which, btw, is incapable of becoming tamei, so niddah has nothing to do with it--at least give them a separate space somewhere with enough room to celebrate in a similar way. But it will never happen unless you start agitating for it. Agitate enough and maybe by the time your granddaughters are old enough to understand they'll have the opportunity.

For myself I don't connect to the celebrations, either, men's or women's. I don't do forced merriment on schedule. I appreciate the Torah, can't imagine life without it, am grateful to have been given a good Jewish education, love studying Tanach, but the wild celebrations leave me cold. In my teens I faked euphoria because it was the thing to do and who wants to be odd woman out? But appreciation is one thing and euphoria another. I was, euphoric on my wedding day, but when our anniversary rolls around I'm "merely" happy and celebratory, not wildly euphoric. And I'm no longer willing to fake euphoria on ST either. Once past the age of going around collecting candy, I always found the whole thing rather boring. Nevertheless, I agitated with other women in my shul for a dancing space, because "k'sheani l'atzmi, mah ani?" Other women who are on a spiritual high and do feel this need to celebrate in a physical way deserve to have the opportunity, even if I have no interest .

tree of life

Sat, Oct 12 2024, 11:05 am

https://youtu.be/AI5yhwPpLjk?s.....BwdL2
Hatzlacha

Elfrida

Sat, Oct 12 2024, 11:45 am

The dancing is an external celebration, and some women enjoy watching, while others don't. Many women in my shul who aren't interested in the dancing go home for an hour or so.

The peak of the day, however, is the leining - finishing v'zot ha'brachah, and starting again at Bereishit. And the haftara, beginning Yehoshua, continuing Torah and history without Moshe Rabbeinu. That is our heritage and belongs to us all. Hearing from the women's section is just as good as hearing with the men.

amother

Pearl

Sat, Oct 12 2024, 2:25 pm

Sending your children to Day school. Learning with your children for their lessons. Making a Siyyum for them when they finish the Parsha in school. Shul, davening. Teaching them the Simcha of being able to learn Torah.

amother

↑ OP

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 6:03 pm

All this is very true, we live a torah life all the time but celebrating the torah is something different. And if you have no man in your life that goes to shul or learns torah, the yom rov I find has a different taste.

amother

↑ Daffodil

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 6:07 pm

amother OP wrote:

Do you not have a father? Brothers? Rabbeim?
It's more than just about a husband. Also do you not learn any Torah?

amother

↑ Hydrangea ↓

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 6:27 pm

I never associated the YT with having a man in my life, whether he learned Torah or not. OP, are you of a sect that denies women the opportunity and right to learn "inside" and insists that you can only be rewarded second-hand by hanging onto some man's coattails? If so, I can see why you would have a hard time connecting.

amother

Mauve

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 7:08 pm

amother Nectarine wrote:

I personally read a portion of the weeks partial each week and I’m looking forward to finishing a year worth of doing that!

Is this by email? Sounds interesting would love to do this. Can you share more?

amother

Wine ↓

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 7:26 pm

I heard from one of the greatest Gedolim of the previous generation that for a woman her main connection to the lomdus of Torah is through her children, not her husband. Because, as a divorced lady you already know that's where you have more influence.

(Unless he was talking specifically to me because he foresaw I would get divorced even though I wasn't even married yet. Also possible but point still stands.)

amother

Amaranthus

Wed, Oct 23 2024, 12:02 am

I wrote down notes to hopefully print and have to share at the table.
I think this is a fantastic thread and I want to bump it up.

↑ zaq

Wed, Oct 23 2024, 4:49 am

Elfrida wrote:

. Hearing from the women's section is just as good as hearing with the men.

Only if it's possible to hear as well from the women's section as it is from the men's section. In many shuls, this is not the case, and it is difficult if not impossible to hear anything at all from the women's section.

amother

↑ Hydrangea

Wed, Oct 23 2024, 4:57 am

amother Wine wrote:

I heard from one of the greatest Gedolim of the previous generation that for a woman her main connection to the lomdus of Torah is through her children, not her husband.

And if she's single and/or childless, or hey children are unable or unwilling to learn, what then? Is she out in the cold? Apparently so, unless she belongs to a branch of Judaism that believes in Torah as an equal-opportunity employer and that women can and should do their own learning, irrespective of whether or not there are males in their lives and what those males do or do not do.

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