This week marked the end of the festivals of Tishrei (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah). The custom in many synagogues is to announce, during the closing prayer of Simchat Torah, a verse from the Torah that encapsulates the conceptual meaning of the transition between the festivals and the days to come. The verse is found in Genesis 32:2, "And Jacob went his way.".
The story in the verse, in short, is that Jacob, after working for twenty years in the house of his father-in-law Laban and having been deceived many times, wanted to return to his father's house, from which he had left alone and poor and now returned with four wives, eleven sons, and immense wealth. Specifically, after encountering Laban on the road and escaping unharmed, "Jacob went on his way," to his father's house.
What is the connection between this verse and the end of the holidays? After experiencing most of one of the most significant months of the year, filled with a wide range of emotions, such as the solemnity of Rosh Hashanah, the repentance and reconnection of Yom Kippur, the joy of Sukkot, the dances of Simchat Torah, and so on, the extraordinary moments come to an end, and one must return to everyday, ordinary reality. That is why the verse speaks of Jacob, and not of Israel.
One of the differences between these two names is that Yaakov comes from the Hebrew word ekev, heel, the lowest part of the body, while Israel contains the letters of li rosh (for me, head), symbolizing the highest part of the body, the head.
The fact that the verse speaks of Jacob and not of Israel implies that it is speaking of all Jews, even those who are at the spiritual level of the heel. Even they must advance, as the verse says, "was," in Hebrew. halakh, which symbolizes a way of advancing by leaps and bounds, so to speak, and not step by step.
In other words, every Jew, man or woman, has a purpose, a mission from the earliest moments of their life to progress and draw closer to God. The way to fulfill this mission is by going "on His path," which refers to the path of God, the study of Torah, and the observance of its precepts.
The festivals in general, and those of Tishrei in particular, function as spiritual spas where one renews energies that will be applied throughout the year. Each festival brings a different and necessary energy. After all the emotions experienced, the sound of the Shofar, the singing Avinu Malkeinu (Our Father, our King) towards the end of Yom Kippur, rejoicing in the Sukkah and dancing with the Torah, a person might think that they had a good recharge of Jewish energy for the rest of the year, that is, that their Judaism consists of living a month full of holidays and Mitzvot, while the rest of the year...
The announcement towards the end of the holidays, "And Jacob went his way," reminds us that even as Jacob, a simple Jew, even when there are no holidays, no deep feelings and emotions, but the daily experience of Judaism, one must still go on the path of God, one must try to apply the teachings gathered throughout the month in daily life, in the simplest things of life.