Simchat Torah is a component of the Biblical Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret ("Eighth Day of Assembly"), which follows immediately after the festival of Sukkot in the month of Tishrei (occurring in September or October on the Gregorian calendar).

On each occasion, when the ark is opened, the worshippers leave their seats to dance and sing with the Torah scrolls in a joyous celebration that lasts several hours.

In Orthodox and Conservative communities outside Israel, Shemini Atzeret is a two-day holiday, and the Simchat Torah festivities are observed on the second day.

Although each hakafa needs to encompass only one circuit around the synagogue, the dancing and singing with the Torah often continues much longer and may overflow onto the streets.

In Orthodox and Conservative synagogues, the hakafot are accompanied by traditional chants, including biblical and liturgical verses and songs about the Torah, the goodness of God (Mipi El is an example), Messianic yearnings, and prayers for the restoration of the House of David and of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Women and older girls often have dancing circles (sometimes with the Torah scrolls) or look on from the other side of a mechitza (partition), in accordance with the value of tzniut (modesty).

After the hakafot, many congregations recite a portion of the last parashah of the Torah, V'Zot HaBerakhah ("This is the Blessing ...") in Deuteronomy.

May the angel who redeems me from all evil bless the children, and may my name be declared among them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they teem like fish for multitude within the land.Although the blessing of the children is omitted from the 1985 edition of Conservative Judaism's Siddur Sim Shalom prayer book, it was reinstated in later versions.

Joseph Colon Trabotto adds in his Responsa that in his edition (ours is lacunose), ibn Ghayyat added that Hayy had also written, "Our habit is to dance [on the day after Sh'mini Atzeret] specifically, even many of the elders, when they make eulogies of the torah, and this is permitted because it glorifies the torah", a ruling affirmed by Moses Isserles (Darkhei Moshe).

Abraham ben Nathan (12th century) writes in haManhig that "the French rite is ... they make large celebrations, the entire community in the homes of the honorees, because it is the Simchat Torah."

In the 13th century, the reading of Genesis was added in some communities immediately upon the completion of Deuteronomy, and the Shulhan Arukh (written about 1565)[5] codifies this.

There is presumably a later custom of southern European countries to remove all the Torah scrolls from the ark and to sing a separate hymn for each one.

In northern European countries, those who had finished the reading of Deuteronomy donated to the synagogue, after which the wealthier members of the community would give a dinner for friends and acquaintances.

By the end of the 15th century, it was a common though not universal practice for the children to tear down and burn the sukkahs on Simchat Torah.

[7] In the 17th century, Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner of Prague composed a poem about Simchat Torah.

[8] In Poland, it was the custom to sell to the members of the congregation, on the 23rd of Tishri, the privilege of executing various functions during the services on Shabbat and Jewish festivals; i.e., the synagogue used this occasion as a fund-raiser.

On October 14, 1973, more than 100,000 Jews took part in a post–Simhat Torah rally in New York City on behalf of refuseniks and Soviet Jewry.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said:The Gaon of Vilna said that ve-samachta be-chagekha (You shall rejoice in your festival; Deuteronomy 16:14) is the most difficult commandment in the Torah.