בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
בְּרוּךֶ אַתֶה חֲוָיָה שְׁכִינּוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדַשְׁתַנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתֶיהֶ וְצִוְתָנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
בְּרוּכָה אַתְּ יָהּ אֱלֹהָתֵינוּ רוּחַ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קֵרְבָתְנוּ לַעֲבוֹדָתָהּ וְצִוְתָנוּ לַעֲסוֹק בְּדִבְרֵי תוֹרָה
Blessings for learning and studying Torah
Berakhot 11b:
Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Nonbinary Hebrew Project:
B’rucheh ateh Khavayah Shekhinu ruach ha’olam asher kidash’tanu b’mitzvotei’he v’tziv’tanu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Feminine God Language:
Brukhah at Ya Elohateinu ruach ha’olam asher keir’vat’nu la’avodatah v’tziv’tavnu la’asok b’divrei Torah
Rabbi Avi Strausberg, "Becoming Torah," https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/StrausbergSimhatTorah5784.pdf
To what extent has my learning made an impact on my actions? To be more precise, I am afraid that all of my learning has simply been an enjoyable and perhaps selfish intellectual exercise that has failed to transform me into a person of Torah. Do I learn Torah simply because I enjoy it? Or, do I learn Torah to transform myself into a vessel of holiness in the world? At the end of the day, or perhaps at the end of the Jewish calendar year, am I actually a better person as a result of the many hours given over each year to Torah study? Or, am I the same person I was before, just another year older?
Michael Strassfeld, "The Jewish Holidays," pg. 155
Simchat Torah is a grand celebration of the Jewish people's relationship to Torah, not just a time of unadulterated revelry. In this it differs from Purim, which, at least in the common view, is a liberation from all restraints. Too often Simchat Torah and Purim are confused because people regard them the same way, forgetting that there are different kinds of joy. The wild revelry of Purim, when we are so drunk as not to now the difference between Haman and Mordechai, is different from the rejoicing for the Torah, no matter how enthusiastic or ecstatic it may be. The rejoicing on Simchat Torah is an expression of our love for and joy in the Torah.
By Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman, "Circling Back (Simchat Torah)," https://www.keshetonline.org/resources/circling-back-simchat-torah/
Every year we read the grand tale of the Jewish people from its “prequel” at the start of the universe, through its inception during the time of the matriarchs and patriarchs, its enslavement, liberation, and formation, only to break away at the cliffhanger, right before the big finale, the successful settlement of the wandering tribes in their own homeland.
[...]
There’s a message here. Our human lives aren’t like a Hollywood fairytale, no matter how much we try to make them so. Life is full of false starts, unresolved cliffhangers, incomplete closures, premature endings, repeat stories, and going back to the beginning. Life, like Torah, is a wandering journey in the wilderness, not a destination. Even the major developmental steps of a life – education, career choice, sexual identity, love relationship, family formation, geographic location, retirement – seldom come in exactly the right order at the right time.
[T]here is a spiritual maturation in this seemingly endless cycle. As Jewish individuals, communities, and as a people, each time we return to the beginning, we do so with a bit more experience and wisdom. Though we didn’t reach the Promised Land, perhaps we learned a bit more in the last cycle of our journey. There is a richness and depth to revisiting important themes, both in Torah and in our lives.
Jill Hammer, "The Death of Moses," The Torah, a Women's Commentary
[...] we began redemption together
on the banks of the Nile
weaving reeds plots baby clothes
now we are the ones who finish the circle
we do the last work of the wilderness
he has seen the whole land
but we, we have seen the universe
how a tiny child can become a river
how a salt sea can turn to earth
we bury him in the valley
in the land of Moab
where one day a mother and a daughter
will come to love one another
and redemption will be born
we bury him in the shifting sands
in a shroud white as the moon
"and no man knows his burial place
until this day"
אלא עד כאן הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב ואומר מכאן ואילך הקב"ה אומר ומשה כותב בדמע
Rabbi Shimon explains: Rather, until this point, i.e., the verse describing the death of Moses, the Holy One, Blessed be, dictated and Moses wrote the text and repeated after Him. From this point forward, with regard to Moses’ death, the Holy One, Blessed be, dictated and Moses wrote with tears without repeating the words, due to his great sorrow.
Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler, "On Writing and Dying With Tears," https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/286516.17?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
To those who say that Moshe cried his way through to the end, it seems that Moshe left an important legacy of tears. After all the talk "face to face," the promises, the stories, the agonies, and the miracles, the greatest lesson of all that Moshe models is how to cry with God, how to render oneself raw and vulnerable and real. The rabbis of the Talmud say, “Every gate has been locked except for the gates of tears” (BT Bava Metzia 59a). Standing at that gate, Moshe teaches us in his final moments that no matter where one finds oneself; no matter how despairing one might feel; no matter how close one lies to the end, God hears, though He might not heed, the tears of those who call to Him.
[...]
Finally, to those who imagine tears imprinted ever-so-subtly into parchment, only to be filled in over time, it seems that the Torah did not actually come to an end with the death of Moshe. It instead left us with an invitation to continue the story. We must keep writing. We must keep living. We must find a way to fill in the outlines left by our great teacher as we each take our place in the unfolding Jewish story.