The Torah: an Anthology
Compiled by Yanki Tauber
They call us the "People of the Book" because of our legendary devotion to it. When a child is born, we wish its parents, "May you merit to raise him/her to Torah," and the first words that a Jewish parent teaches his or her child are: Torah tzivah lanu Moshe, morashah kehilat Yaakov ("The Torah that Moses commanded us is the heritage of the congregation of Jacob"). Jewish law states that we are obligated to pursue the study of Torah every spare moment of our day and night.
For thousands of years, the study of Torah has been our life's occupation and our highest mark of achievement.
The Torah is our mandate as a people, the marriage contract of our special relationship with G-d as His chosen "kingdom of priests and holy nation." But it is not only that: to the Jew, the Torah is nothing less than the basis and objective of all existence. In the words of the Midrash: "G-d made a condition with the work of creation: if the people of Israel accept the Torah, you will exist; if not, you will revert to chaos and nothingness." "G-d looked into the Torah," says the Zohar, "and created the world. The Jew looks into the Torah, and sustains the world."
For 40 days and nights Moses sat on the summit of Mount Sinai, as G-d taught him the Torah; for the next 40 years, Moses taught it to the people of Israel. Thus our sages have said: "a person does not attain the mind of his master until after 40 years [of study]." We don't have 40 years to explain Torah; we only have an anthology of 40 essays, stories, meditations and readings, each offering a glimpse into something the Torah says about itself and its place in our lives:
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