ICJudaism: A Teacher’s Guide to Judaism

      Hosted by ICTeachers                                                                Formerly: Mike’s Rough Guide to Judaism

Disclaimer:

The contents of these pages represent the author’s personal views, experience and understanding.
There are bound to be some things here that some Jews would disagree with.

 

Torah 2

Each week in the synagogue a section of the Torah is read aloud to the congregation. The whole of the 5 books are divided up into 54 parashot, or portions, and one is read each week. Thus the whole Torah is read during the year. Because the Jewish year works on a cycle of lunar months and can have between 50 and 55 weeks (unlike the 52 week Gregorian calendar, which is the everyday calendar we are used to) there are times when it is necessary to combine 2 parashot into one week to make them fit the year.

The Torah reading forms the focal point of the Shabbat (Saturday) morning service. Every Jew has the duty to read the Torah and, in order to fulfil this obligation, several members of the congregation are called each week to read a part of the week's portion.

The Torah is read from a large, hand-written scroll, called a Sefer Torah (a book of Torah pronounced sayfer torah), in which the Hebrew text has neither vowels nor punctuation. Nor does it have verse numbers or chapter headings. As you can imagine, reading it is not easy and it’s usually a rabbi or other expert who actually does the reading while the person who has been called up to read looks on. The congregation will follow the reading in book called a Chumash (the Hebrew number 5), which, in addition to the Hebrew text complete with vowels and punctuation, usually contains both an English translation and commentaries and explanations.

After the Torah reading a complementary reading, called the Haftarah, from one of the books of prophets will be read (in orthodox synagogues it will usually be read, or sung, in Hebrew; in progressive synagogues it will often be read in translation). Again, a member of the congregation will be given the honour of reading it. The Chumash also contains all of the year’s Haftarot and their translations.

In an orthodox service it is usual for 7 people to be called to read from the scroll, in a progressive service it is more likely to be 3.

Torah is at the heart of Judaism. For Orthodox Jews it is the unalterable word of God, given by divine inspiration, or in some other way, by God to Moses.

This orthodox or fundamentalist viewpoint maintains, therefore, that if the text says that "God created" then this is a fact, for the word of God is by definition truth itself. It maintains further that the Torah, being given by
God, must carry meaning in every word and that not even one letter can be superfluous. One may not understand everything, but that is a human shortcoming. If modern scientific knowledge appears to contradict the biblical word, then either our present-day science will prove to be in error or we do not understand the Bible properly. This was, and is the position of Orthodox Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity, and of most commentaries of the past. (Gunther Plaut, The Torah, a Modern Commentary, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981)

 

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