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Orchard of Delights Ki Tavo

as the numerical value of the Torah’s first word, “bereishit” (“in the every phenomenon that has ever happened or will ever happen is
beginning”). Dancing at the beginning of a year full of promise, we alluded to in the Torah. (This notion is most succinctly conveyed by
are imbued with joy, trust, and faith in what the new year will bring Ben Bag Bag in Pirkei Avot (5:26): “Turn it [the Torah] and turn it
to us as individuals and as Jews. Although the script of the Torah again for everything is in it.”) Until recently the notion that twelve
is written and God has rendered and sealed our judgments for the stones could contain seventy different versions of the Torah probably
upcoming year, Judaism firmly believes that in some sense the script did not attract a lot of attention. Today, though, this miracle gains
is still blank as we all continue to write our own script every day of fresh relevance because of the invention of the microchip. The
the year. Paradoxically, far from being closed books, our lives are increasingly vast amounts of information that can be encoded on
open to change; we still have the ability to determine much of what smaller and smaller chips is alluded to by these twelve stones, which
we will experience in the upcoming year. This realization brings with in turn allude to the miraculous notion of “the little that contains
it great joy and power, as we symbolically roll the Torah back to much” (Bereishit Rabbah 9:7).
Bereishit and acknowledge our ability to choose to begin again. Although by now we take technological advances as a given, it
The Talmud states that everything goes after the sealing (Berachot should not cease to amaze us that machines that once filled whole
12a). The manner in which we conclude any journey in life affects how rooms and could perform a handful of functions now fit in the
we will remember it and how it will impact on our lives. Therefore, palms of our hands and have the capability of performing millions
the Sages decided that we should conclude the yearly reading of the of functions per second. This miracle is alluded to by the seventy
Torah and the High Holiday season with great joy and celebration, versions of the Torah written on the twelve stones.
so that this energy would remain with us and carry over into the new
year.
At one of the most climatic moments during the Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur prayers, we declare that repentance, prayer, and
charity have the power to nullify negative decrees. Immediately 20
following the Ten Days of Repentance, the joyous holidays of Sukkot
and Simchat Torah teach us that joy also has the power to nullify
negative decrees, wiping the slate clean, and allowing a truly new
year to begin.

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