Simchat Torah

Right-o, so this past saturday evening was when many american jews celebrate simchat torah. without good options for celebrating on friday night (to avoid making a distinction between israel and the diaspora)i went with the flow and rejoiced in torah motzei shabbat. Shari and Chana come over and we walked to Adas. We met up with Lori, Ethan, Joelle, Blaine, Ariella K, Elana, the Kays, and a bunch of other folks. They do maariv and the first two hakafot in the main sanctuary and then proceed to the social hall for the next five. i had never done hakafot in pews before coming to DC. i didn't get quite how to do it, but pretty soon we moved on downstairs.
the scene was much better than last year which only had pewy hakafos. a lot of people had a lot of oomph and there was a lot of dancing and singing and even a merlin pun. he "beat us to the punch". There actually was punch and he got there first.
a little while later something very odd happened, a sort of role reversal. Mike Kay was singing haderet vehamunah while standing on a chair. people were responding as appropriate. while mike was singing a he was strewn with tallitot, perhaps a dozen. then a bunch of very drunk guys surrounded his chair and were about to life the chair while he was standing on it. I went up to the guys and said something along the lines of sorry guys, that's a dangerous idea, don't do it, mike is likely to get hurt. It worked. These guys were having a great time rejoicing in torah, and i told them they'd have to put the brakes on. When there were people dancing and singing and about to do something of dubious safety confronted with a cooler head offering conservative risk analysis, heretofore i have never been the latter. The rest of the night was pleasant. I walked home via calvert with evin, elana, and ariella.
good times were had by all. not sure if i'll go back next year. maybe i'll organize something on the israeli/recon/reform hag day.