Well, it's over. A month of holidays, that is. When Simchat Torah was over last weekend all we wanted to do was watch some funny movies and catch up on the latest news.
But there are other ways of celebrating the end of a long holiday season. In the Chassidic world there seems to be a tradition among some sects of gathering around the rebbe's tish (table) and trying to catch apples thrown by the rebbe at his Chassidim.
Here's a video of the Sanz-Klausenberg rebbe tossing apples at hundreds of shtreimel-wearing Chassidim. Apparently the rebbe made another appearance at a smaller tish where just throwing apples wasn't enough, so in the next video he climbed onto the table and danced back and forth while juggling the apples to the approval of his followers, this time wearing black hats.
The Sanz-Klausenberg sect has two headquarters locations led by two brothers, in Borough Park, Brooklyn and Netanya, Israel. It's possible that these two clips are from separate parties in both locations, as they were posted on Sunday and Monday, but it's hard to tell from the limited information available on the internet. Either way, we're happy that they're apple-y having a good time.
But wait! There's more! We came across a video of the rebbe of Belz tossing apples to a line of young men eight months ago in what may be a test of who is a "good catch." Here's the video. If any of our readers are Chassidim who can explain the origin of these apple tossing sessions, please submit your comments to share with our readers. In the meantime, we're going to suggest to the rabbi of our synagogue that this might be a fun activity to coincide with apple picking time in October.
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