Simchat Torah, "rejoicing of the Torah", celebrates the completion and immediate recommencement of the annual cycle of Torah reading. Falling on the twenty-second of Tishrei in the Land of Israel and the twenty-third in the Diaspora, coinciding with or following Shemini Atzeret at the close of the Sukkot season, it marks the point at which the last verses of Deuteronomy are read and, without pause, the opening of Genesis is begun again, so that the study of the Torah is shown never to end.
Its observance is the most physically exuberant in the synagogue year. All the Torah scrolls are taken from the ark and carried in seven processions, the hakafot, around the synagogue with singing and dancing, often spilling out of doors; the honour of the concluding and opening readings is given ceremonially, and in many communities every adult, and all the children, are called to the Torah. The festival is a relatively late medieval development, formalising a joy attached to the reading cycle, and in the modern period it has taken on added meaning: under Soviet rule it became a night on which Jews gathered publicly to affirm their identity, and it remains one of the happiest evenings of the Jewish year.