We are a society fond of novelty, but we know that mastery demands repetition. No one is a great golfer with the first stroke or a grandmaster with the first move of a pawn. Human achievements, individual and social, require constant application. We cannot grasp depth on the first pass: “There are no readers,” said the writer Vladimir Nabokov, “only rereaders.”

The Torah has been described in many ways: a love letter, a ketubah, one long poem, a mystic message of black-on-white fire, a compendium of law and story, a family diary, the foundation stone of Israel, a written assurance of God’s love. All of that cannot be grasped at once; it unfurls its secrets over time. Turn it over and over, the Rabbis advise us, for everything is in it.

This week is Simchat Torah, the celebration of the reading of the Torah. It is traditional to dance with the Torah, joyous to once again be receiving this gift. We recommit to learning and renewing our understanding.

In order to do that, we must also renew our efforts to protect it and those who treasure it. Two years ago on Simchat Torah, as we danced in streets of Los Angeles, an Iranian woman approached me with tears in her eyes. “Growing up in Iran never would have dreamed the day would come that I could dance in the street with a Torah.” Rereading the teachings of human sanctity and worth, we reinvigorate our commitment to ensure that dignity for others.

To have great books, said Walt Whitman, there must be great readers. For thousands of years the Torah has been the focus of scholars, saints and sages, the distilled genius of the Talmudic Rabbis, and their innumerable disciples. Words seemingly wrung dry by intellectual exertions suddenly show themselves capable of new meanings to new generations.

This year on Simchat Torah, as we hold aloft the Torah, we can make the words come alive again. Readers are those who not only go through the text but allow the text to move through them. Holding aloft the Torah we understand the mission to see its words realized in our lives and in our world: “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof (25:10).”