51 weeks ago, I offered you A Healthy Portion of Salmagundi, being a ragbag of odds and ends. I find myself having to resort to the same cheap trick today. I thought the least I could do is find a different dish this time, and so I offer you a gallimaufry.

What a gallimaufry is is a hash of various kinds of meat, and what this post threatens to be is a hash of a number of stray thoughts that, despite several trawls of a brain addled by 25 hours of Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, are all that I can manage to dredge up. I apologise in advance for the lack of internal cohesion – and possibly interest – but the fact remains that some weeks this blog virtually writes itself, and other times it….doesn’t.

Incidentally, my research suggests that the probable etymology of ‘gallimaufry’ is the Old French ‘galer’, meaning ‘to have fun’ or ‘to enjoy oneself’ and the Old Northern French (or Picard) for ‘to eat gluttonously’. (Presumably, Picard was the language spoken in the region of France where the First World War Battle of the Somme was fought and, more felicitously, where roses are blooming.)

Let’s tuck in, starting with Simchat Torah. I speak here only for myself, of course. The idea that the Torah can make me joyous is one that I can certainly understand. The idea that I would be led to express that joy by dancing with the scrolls is one that I personally find I cannot connect with. The 19^th-Century Anglo-Jewish artist Solomon Alexander Hart portrayed The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, Italy. I present his painting here as evidence that I am not alone in finding it difficult to summon the requisite joy. Perhaps I should find an Italian shul to go to on Simchat Torah.

Clearly the Italian tradition is rather different from the (presumably Spanish-Portuguese) that Samuel Pepys witnessed when he had the (mis)fortune to visit a synagogue on (of all days) Simchat Torah. I quote from his diary entry for Wednesday, 14 October, 1663 (in case you were wondering when Simchat Torah fell outside Israel in that year).

And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this.

Many would argue that Simchat Torah is a festival primarily for the children. When I was a young father, I certainly played the part. (But it was always conscious and self-conscious; any joy that I felt was in seeing the children’s excitement and in feeling a part of the community; none of it really had much, if anything, to do with the Torah.) These days, I choose to make a very early and, I always hope, discreet, exit from the festivities, and sit upstairs in the (appropriately named) sanctuary, reading one or other of various commentaries on the Torah.

This year I read a number of the refreshingly short chapters in Rabbi Sacks and the Community We Built Together, a tribute collection to Rabbi Sacks z”l in which some one hundred rabbis and other members of the Anglo-Jewish community who knew him professionally and personally share teachings of Rabbi Sacks that speak to them, and record their appreciation of him. The contributors range from dayanim to the publishing manager of Rabbi Sacks’ prayer book for children and one of the Rabbi’s protection officers.

As is almost always the case when I study Rabbi Sacks’ insights into Judaism and Torah, there were one or two moments yesterday when I did indeed feel joy at the truth and resonant clarity of his insights. What also comes through powerfully from this collection is Rabbi Sacks’ extraordinary ability to connect warmly with a very wide range of people. Not for the first time did I find myself wishing that I could take on board not only more of his extraordinary teachings, but also more of his humanity.

Before and after the chag, I have been busy preparing for our shul’s annual general meeting tomorrow night, which I have reluctantly agreed to chair, and which will see us appoint chairman and board for the next year. Reflecting on that, I thought about writing this week about leadership struggles, what with the ongoing fiasco that is the Conservative Government in Britain, and the relentlessly acrimonious and cynical Israeli election campaign, which is entering its final two weeks before the November 1 general election.

However, even in my wildest fantasies I don’t rate myself as a political commentator. Let me simply say that it seems to me that in Britain as in Israel, the standard of national political debate and leadership has shown a steady decline in the last 20 years. It is not easy for me to see a way back from the current abysmally low state of discourse in either country. In comparison, our shul seems a model of functioning democracy.

Moving swiftly on: when I bought a macchinetta in Madrid, it did not occur to me that I would be able to use it on chag. Then, when Esther and Maayan were here on Rosh Hashana, they found that the electric hotplate we use on shabbat and chag was hot enough to boil the water in the macchinetta. So, my Sukkot was enhanced by fresh coffee. All that is required is the foresight to grind a sufficient quantity of beans before the chag, and to remember to put the macchinetta on the hotplate sufficiently early, before it is extinguished by the timeswitch.

That certainly sounds easy as I write it here. In fact, I am very proud to say that so far I have remembered every time to grind the coffee before chag, and have a 50% success rate with timing the actual heating. Now, all I need to do is to find a rabbi who will agree that I can perform the same trick on shabbat.

It appears that not only is this week’s dish a gallimaufry, but it is also one influenced by cuisine minceur, being served in a noticeably smaller portion than usual. I vow to make every effort to offer a full-size helping next week.

I can at least offer you two photos. Raphael reached another milestone this week: he is now seven months old. He has recently mastered sitting up, although he still seems to be even happier lying down.