Shalom.
This video is about Torah. Now, when we say Torah, it refers to many things. The most narrow definition of a Torah, a Torah scroll, a Sefer Torah, is a scroll on animal parchment that contains in Hebrew, the five books of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. They are in English, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. One good way to remember that is the expression, “Good eaters leave no dessert.” Good eaters leave no dessert would be G for Genesis, E for Exodus, etcetera. In Hebrew, they go by the first major word of each of the five books. They are Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and Devarim. So that is a Sefer Torah.
Now, when you come into the synagogue, you often find a book either you are handed or in the peus, that is also a Torah. It is usually the five books of Moses with English translation and in between each portion of the 54 portions we divide the Torah into, is a prophetic portion that we also chant on Shabbath and holidays called the haftara.
Now, also when you say someone is a Torah true Jew means that they live a Jewish life. Studying Torah could be the five books of Moses. It could be Bible, it could be Rabbinic literature, it is also used in a broader sense.
Now, what is the story of Torah? Well, it begins with the creation of the world then we have in the course, Adam, Eve, their children, being exiled from the garden, the story of Noah and the Ark. Ten generations later, we have Abraham, about 1900 b.c.e. the story of He and Sarah, the expulsion of Haganah and Ishmael, the birth of Isaac and then Isaac and Rebekah’s children, Jacob and Esau. Esau begins the other part of the world, Jacob is the patriarch of the Jewish people. He marries two women, Rachel and Leah, and two concubines. They have 12 sons and a daughter. The 12 sons become the 12 tribes of Israel and at the end of the story, one of his sons, Joseph is mistreated by his brothers, sold in the slavery into Egypt and there rises in Egypt, becomes number two to Pharaoh. Jacob and the family migrate down and they settled in Egypt. And Joseph and his family is now held on high esteem.
Axis begins with a new dynasty who did not recall the wonders of Joseph and enslaves the Israelites as part of the prophecy and covenant of God to Abraham. Finally Moses is raised up. He brings forth a demand from Pharaoh to let my people go. God brings forth 10 plagues and of course the pharaoh in the end relents. Israelites leave. They go to Sinai, they get the Torah and then they marched in the desert for 40 years and the rest of the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers tell that story.
In the meantime, there are several sections in Exodus which tell us about the construction of the tabernacle with Leviticus also called the book of Kalenime has many of the rules of the Levites and the priests and how they govern. The book of numbers as many fascinating important stories, the rebellion of Korach, the prophecy of Bilam who spoke the curse to Israelites and then said bless them. The story of 28 tribes who wanted to camp on the outside of Israel. Now within the story, the five daughters of Zelophehad who demand the law to be changed asked that it be changed because it was not fair, many fascinating stories. When Numbers ends, that is really the end of the story, pretty much. Deuteronomy is a recapitulation of the first four books in the guys of Moses. The orthodox used to believe the entire thing was written from God to Moses. All other scholars believe that it was written over many centuries by many people. Deuteronomy in fact, is much later. It reflects some differences, no laws like centralized sacrifice and worship. In any case, that is the Torah, the five books of Moses.
Besides the stories that contain hundreds of laws by orthodox tradition, there are 613, but if you ask the ancient rabbis, what are the 613, they will differentiate. They have differences among them. But we know there are hundreds of laws. I likes to do is to read the texts and says God commanded to Moses saying, command the children of Israel to do such and such, many, many laws.
The Torah is our most sacred possession. We treat it very carefully. We keep them in special closets called the Aron Kodesh, the holy ark. We dress them with mantles. They have usually elaborated silver decorations, they have ties. We do not touch the scroll because we are afraid of rubbing out the letters and getting them dirty. We use an object to refer the letters called a yad, a hand. When the Torah is raised, we stand. When it is passes by us, we generally kiss it or use our fringes to kiss it to show veneration. Not to do itself is holy. But because it represents the word of God, inspired through human beings writing it, that we treat with such reverence. And obviously it is the basis of all western civilization and religion and the most sacred thing to the Jewish people. And so, that is a brief understanding of the Torah.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services