Law as Love. One of the most amusing scenes in Anglo-Jewish history occurred on the 14th of October,

1663. A mere seven years had passed since Oliver Cromwell had found no legal bar to Jews living in

England, hence the so-called return of Jews in 1656.

A small synagogue was opened in Creechurch Lane in the city of London,

forerunner of Bevis Marx that was opened in 1701,

the oldest still extant place of Jewish worship in Britain.

It was then that the famous diarist Samuel Pepys decided to pay a visit to this new curiosity,

to see how Jews conducted themselves at prayer.

What he saw amazed and scandalized him, as chance or providence had it,

the day of his visit turned out to be

Simchatura. This is how he described what he saw. And at all, their laws that they take out of

the press, in other words out of the ark, are carried by several men, four or five, several

burdens in all, and they do relieve one another,

and whether it is that everyone desires to have the carrying of it, I can't tell, thus they carried

it round about the room while such a service is singing. But Lord, to ceded 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 forsware 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. In other words, this was not the kind of behavior he was used to

in a house of worship. There is something unique about the relationship of Jews to the Torah,

the way we stand in its presence as if it were a king, dance with it as if it were a bride,

listen to it, telling our story,

...