The 90`s

Upper West Side was the place to be

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel Publisher Week of October 20th - 25th,1993

It is has to be the biggest Hebe Hop this side of Jerusalem or Crown Heights -- Simchat Torah on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Just mention Simchat Torah to a young, single, Orthodox Jew and what immediately springs to mind is a virtual cornucopia of mating and dating possibilities.  If there is a culmination, a pinnacle to the modern Orthodox social season, Simchat Torah is it. 

On Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah we technically celebrate the end of the holiday of Succot, the end of the plethora of holidays that makes the month of Tishrei so unique and the end of our annual cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses, the Torah.

In Second Temple times the three major Jewish festivals saw an explosion of shiddach, or match-making.  It was where Jews from far and wide, hither and yon gathered to give thanks, praise the Lord and meet members of the opposite sex.

Today, in North America young pilgrims make their way to the Upper West Side.  They come from Toronto, Baltimore, South Florida, L.A., Memphis and even from Brooklyn and Queens.  It is a convocation of the knitted kipah crowd. Everyone eligible and affable from 18 and up converges on their friends couches, on floors and in hotels just to see and be seen.

Synagogues such as Ohab Zedek on West 95th Street and Jewish Center on West 86th Street are besieged by battalions of eager young Jews, their eyes fervently serching the balconies and opposite sides of the mechtizah.

Hallmarks of the festival are virtual open houses, holiday meals where 100 or more are de reguerm where one hops from one house to another, from one oneg to the next in an effor to meet as many people as possible.

This year the West Side shuls tried something -- for Simchat Torah eve they combined their last hatkafuh (or circuit) of the Torah so that everyone from every synagogue would wind-up on West End Avenue between 84th and 86th Streets.  No more shul-hopping necessary. In this era of mega discount warehouses and giant supermarkets, one-stop shopping was the rule of the day this time around.

In a scene reminiscent of Israel, over 10,000 young Jews descended on the avenue for what was probably the largest singles gathering ever.  Residents in the buildings up above were hanging out of their windows, anxious to see what was causing all the fuss below. The police finally had to clear the street after midnight (after four hours) but that still didn't deter the determined and crowds milled about on the sidewalks until past 2:00 a.m.  Needless to say, a great many people arrived late for synagogue the next morning.  

The feeling one gets while enveloped in a crowd of thousands of young committed Jews is nothing short of energizing.  You know that here are vibrant, intelligent people in their 20s and 30s who have made a lifestyle choice to adhere to the faith of our fathers and mothers, to practice Judaism in the face of massive ignorance, disinterest and apathy by the masses of American Jewish young people; who have taken six days off since Rosh Hashanah in a society that hardly ever heard of Succot.

These Ortho-yuppies are the vanguard of American Jewish survival for the 21st century, by meeting and marrying other Jews, by raising their children in traditional homes, by sending them to full-time Jewish schools, by living the Jewish calendar they re-affirm the vitality of Judaism even in this sophisticated day and age.

Frivolity, mixing and mingling aside, you know what this is really all about for us when you've jammed-in, standing room only at a place like Ohab Zedek, when the Torahs a returned to the ark, resplendent in their holiday white covers, crowns and breast plates and the packed house joins in unison singing the words Etz Chaim Hee, "And when it [the ark] rested he [Moses] would say, 'Return Lord to the myriad thousands of Israel.  Arise, Lord to your resting place, You and the Ark of Your strength.' Let your priests (Kohanim) be clothed in righteousness, and Your devout ones will sing joyously. For the sake of David Your servant, turn not away the face of your anointed. For I have given you a good teaching, do not forsake my Torah. It is a tree of life for those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness ad all its paths are peace.  Bring us back to you, Lord, and we shall return, renew our days as of old."

The miracle of Judaism is its constant renewals.  We always start over. There is always a new beginning, the New Moon, the New Year, the New cycle of reading the Torah, it is this constant newness amidst the old that rejuvenates our people through the millennia.  The throngs of young people in Manhattan for Simchat Torah is an apt metaphor for what the whole holiday season is about: a new generation holding fast to the teachings of their parents, looking ahead to tomorrow in an old, yet always new Jewish life year after year.