Taking the Fire Home - Esh Dat Lamo - simchat torah

What does it

really mean when the Torah describes itself as “Esh Dat Lamo” — a Torah of fire?

As we reach the final words of the Torah on Simḥat Torah, we discover a

remarkable tradition surrounding the Baal Shem Tov and the name of his

daughter, Adele—a name connected to the very letters of Esh Dat Lamo.

From Ḥanokh the shoemaker to a pair of torn shoes that changed a family’s

future, an unexpected thread begins to emerge: Torah is not meant simply to be

studied or even held. It is meant to become a fire that we carry into ordinary

life and then pass forward.

For

me, this teaching became deeply personal. My mother was Adele, and she lived to

98. At 95, she was still working out and teaching women a fifth of her age how