Simchat Torah, 22 Tishrei

Simchat Torah, rejoicing of the Torah, falls on the twenty second of Tishrei in the Land of Israel, the date this rule records, immediately following the seven days of Sukkot and the additional day of Shemini Atzeret with which it is combined in Israeli practice. The festival marks the completion of the annual cycle of public Torah reading, with the final passage of Deuteronomy read and the scroll immediately rewound to the opening words of Genesis and read again without pause, a single service in which an ending and a beginning are performed back to back rather than separated.

Unlike the pilgrimage festivals it follows, Simchat Torah has no basis in the Torah's own text and belongs to the later rabbinic calendar, developing as a distinct celebration once the practice of completing the full Torah reading cycle annually, rather than over a longer cycle as some ancient communities practiced, became the dominant custom. The day is marked with hakafot, joyful processions in which the Torah scrolls are carried and danced around the synagogue, a practice kept in the traditional Diaspora on a second, separate day, the twenty third of Tishrei, rather than the same one. The combined Israeli observance, folding the eighth day assembly of Shemini Atzeret and the Torah completion of Simchat Torah into one calendar day, reflects the same general Israeli practice of keeping a single festival day where the traditional Diaspora keeps two, though here the combination is with an adjoining festival rather than a doubled version of the same one.