I want to empathize with all those who feel left out of the dancing. When I was a kid and life was so much more colorful and richer, it was an absolute torture for me to be stuck behind bars (literally, in some shuls), straining my eager eyes and neck and standing on tippy-toes or calculating which position to crouch in or which eye to close so I could just about see through the tiny hole- just to catch a glimpse of the beauty beyond. It was always a “pass the screaming baby” situation, a gantze matzav with one mother urging Shloimy to “take Duvi to Tatty”, and another mouthing comically to Moshe to ask the candy man for another pekele cuz Gitty didn’t get one. All this was in my ear, on my toes, in my face, with the pushing and shoving and sticky fingers on my new yom tov outfit. I’d stand for hours watching, and wish wish wish wish that I could join. I loved it!!! Simchas Torah was the time when I was convinced with all the power of my pure and (then still) innocent little bursting heart, that nothing in the world is more beautiful and true than Torah and that way of life. I’d wish SOOO badly then, to be a boy (and also when my brothers would sing zemiros and it’s really nerdy when girls do- they sing too girlyish…ao I comforted myself that one day iy”H I’ll have a husband and sons and they’ll be an extension of me…)
(Wow- can’t believe I wrote all that!)