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A Love Song to TorahJune 2003From the Desk of Rabbi CohonTorah is a word with many meanings. In the simplest sense, the Torah is a physical object, a sacred parchment scroll that is wrapped around and affixed to wooden handles, tied with a band, covered in velvet or embroidered fabric, decorated with silver, and stored in an ark. It is carried around the congregation during morning services on Shabbat and holidays. The Torah is also a text, a document, the Five Books of Moses, originally written in Hebrew and preserved for millennia by careful transcription by hand. It contains five books, of course--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy-54 weekly portions (parhshiyot), and 5,945 sentences. This text has remained consistent for at least two thousand years--although the way the letters themselves are written has changed over time, the words remain constant. The Torah, at heart, is a literary creation, a particularly rich and varied work that contains cosmology, history, ethics, law, custom, ritual, story, genealogy, controversy-and much else. Written in a terse but elegant Hebrew, it is a multilayered book that explores everything from the primacy of God to the rules of the festivals, from the intrigues of politics to the essential paradox and tragedy of the human condition. You can find within it tales of inspiration and humiliation, burlesque comedy and brutal war, family dysfunction and heroic personal and national triumph. There are tales nobility and awe-inspiring divine salvation-and stories of petty jealousy and sexual immorality. It contains great songs and long lists of sacrificial rules and rites. Its literary styles range from poetry to statute, from law to lore, from epic sweep to mundane detail. It might just be the greatest book ever written. The Torah is, as well, the centerpiece of Jewish tradition, the beginning point of all Jewish learning and belief. The start of every Jewish education is Torah, learning the primal stories and ethics of our tradition, the benchmark and way point and foundation of everything Jewish that has followed its creation. You can't really understand Judaism-any kind of movement or trend in Judaism-without coming to terms with what Torah is and what it means. It is the starting point for understanding Jewish morality- indeed, all western morality-and theology, and the source for our holiday and annual cycle and calendar, and the original source of our identity as a people and our connection with the land of Israel. What happened at Mt. Sinai, and just what the text of Torah is and means, shapes just what kind of Jew you choose to be. But Torah is also much more than that. For Torah-the very word means instruction-is also a process of shared learning in community. It shapes the way in which we Jews think about the world and about education. Torah means study in an environment of open discourse and argument, in which every idea and law and story must stand up to vigorous discussion and exploration, in which the relevance of every classic and subversive idea is held up to public scrutiny and opinion. Torah means a shared searching in which each Jew can and should voice opinion and emotion. Torah is a way to find out what God and Judaism means to us, and how we matter in our own world today. And each one of us is critical participant in this dialogue of Torah. On Thursday night, June 5th at 7:30 you can join us as we explore just what Torah is for each of us. Shavu'ot, which remembers the receiving of Torah at Mt. Sinai, is the least appreciated major Jewish holiday-but it probably should be the most important, and you can help make it so. Join us for our Tikun Leil Shavu'ot service, cheesecake bake-off-a Temple Emanu-El tradition of four years, now!-and "all-night" study session (in Tucson this runs until 11 PM…) with Rabbi Freelund, Rabbi Safran, and me as we explore "What is the Torah?" Your participation is at the heart of our program. And join us, too, for Torah study any Shabbat at 8:30 AM, or for the Rabbi's Tish monthly. For when you study them, the words of Torah become "our life and the fulfillment of our days", as our liturgy tells us, and can bring meaning, joy, stimulation, and inspiration to each of us, individually, and as a congregation. L'shalom v'rei'ut, in peace and friendship, Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon |
