On Simchat Torah, we read the end and the beginning of the Torah in one breath, so to speak – as one unbroken story. This leads scholar and poet Esther Schor to argue that “the creation of the world is God’s shiva for Moses.” For seven days, God holds God’s breath – carries inside of Godself Moses’ life force, until finally God forms the first human from earth, blows into this its nostrils the breath of life God took from Moses: the last breath Moses breathes out thus becomes Adam’s first.

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