Dancing for Knowledge

Noach was the first human being who planted a vineyard {Bereshit 9:20}:

וַיָּחֶל נֹחַ, אִישׁ הָאֲדָמָה; וַיִּטַּע, כָּרֶם. וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן-הַיַּיִן, וַיִּשְׁכָּר

Noach, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank from the wine and became drunk.

Noach was extremely happy, and he got drunk. What was the Simcha, the happiness, about? Noach found out that the soil, the Adamah, was not cursed. That what was previously thought of as a curse, the spoiling of the grape juice, was in fact a good thing. With a little help, it created wine. Noach was very happy because he was the one to find out the process. He had discovered a secret of Nature. This is the deeper Perush of the verse (Tehilim 104:15):

וְיַיִן, יְשַׂמַּח לְבַב-אֱנוֹשׁ

And wine, that gladdens a man’s heart.

The heart of Noach, that is. Human knowledge is not obvious. There is a Divine element to it. There is a history of Hester Panim, when it is concealed by the Divine, until a piece of knowledge is unlocked, until the secret is revealed. Noach's heart, in our story, was so much gladdened, through his appreciation that he had seen the growth of human knowledge, that he drank a bit too much.

The heart of Noach is in a way the heart of mankind. When we dance with the Torah on Simchat Torah, we dance with a very old book. One may ask whence is the enormous Simcha that we display, in our day and age, for such an old book? My reply is that we see this old book as the beginning of the growth of human knowledge, which widens and widens and widens. Not that there are no secrets to be discovered in the Torah. Like Noach, we may get a little intoxicated, maybe, to understand just that. But we dance, because we are so happy, and we are so thankful, for the enormity of human knowledge, which grows and grows and grows.

וְטַהֵר לִבֵּנוּ לְעָבְדְּךָ בֶּאֱמֶת