When The Torah Falls

A few weeks ago, my husband and son went to synagogue, like they do every Shabbat. They chose the small service, the one that starts early, the one where everyone knows each other’s kids and whose turn it is to get different honors throughout the prayer service. They’d already finished reading from the Torah and stood near the back during the final part of the service.

Then came hagbah — when someone lifts the Sefer Torah high so everyone can see the words written by hand. It’s the moment that always takes my breath away. The parchment gleams under the lights, and for a second, it feels like you can almost see Sinai. The scroll was then dressed again, crowned, and passed along to be carried back to the the holy ark, just like every week.

But this time, something happened. The Torah slipped. It slid right out of the holder’s hands and hit the floor. My son said the room went completely silent. Then, almost instantly, someone bent down, picked it up, and kissed it, like we do with anything holy that’s fallen. The service went on.

But everyone knew. Dropping a Sefer Torah isn’t just another accident. It shakes you.

Why?

Because the Torah isn’t an object. It’s alive. It’s the center of who we are — the thing we stand for, literally and figuratively. Every letter is copied by hand, every scroll checked and re-checked. When it falls, it feels personal, like a piece of our relationship with God has slipped through our fingers. Even for just a moment.

A few days later, our beloved Synagogue Rabbi, wrote to the community. He explained that while there’s no law that requires a fast after a Torah falls, there is a beautiful custom. We fast – not because we’re being punished, but because we want to respond. We want to say: this matters. Our Rabbi suggested three things we could do: fast, give tzedakah (charity), or learn Torah. Each one, in its own way, lifts something that fell.

That idea stuck with me. We don’t fast to “fix” the Torah. The Torah doesn’t need fixing. We fast to fix ourselves.

And maybe that’s not a new idea at all.

When Moshe Rabbeinu came down from Mount Sinai carrying the two Tablets, he saw the people dancing around the Golden Calf.

It’s such a painful image — the words of God shattered in the dirt. But that moment wasn’t the end of the covenant. It was the beginning of something deeper. God didn’t replace Moshe or start over with someone new. He told Moshe to carve new tablets, to bring them back up the mountain, and to begin again. And both sets – the whole and the broken, were kept in the holy Ark.

That’s one of my favorite teachings: even the broken pieces stay holy.

When a Torah falls, we’re reminded that holiness isn’t fragile. It’s resilient. It gets picked up, kissed, and carried again. The fall isn’t the failure – ignoring it would be.

The late Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm once told a story about the Rizhiner Rebbe on the holiday of Simḥat Torah. The Rebbe, already old and bent, joined the dancing and took hold of a heavy Torah. One of his students asked, “Rebbe, isn’t that too heavy for you?” The Rebbe smiled and said, “Once you hold the Torah, you find that it’s not so heavy.”

That’s exactly how it feels. When the Torah fell in our synagogue, it felt unbearably heavy: the weight of reverence, of love, of responsibility. But the moment we picked it up together, through fasting, giving, and learning – that weight turned into connection.

Because once you hold the Torah, you realize it’s not what you’re carrying. It’s what’s carrying you.