Torah

         Our ancestors perceived that, because of their power to bridge the void between souls, words spoken truthfully are holy.  They understood that they could not afford to forget such words and felt a sacred obligation to preserve and to transmit such words to the next generation.  They called these words of truth "Torah," or teaching.

            They saw, moreover, that a mystery surrounded the origin of words of Torah.  They arose in the human mind, but from where did they come?  Like the first light of creation, they came out of the darkness, out of nowhere.  As our ancestors expressed it, these words of truth came out of the mind of God. 

            Jews are committed to the sacred task of memory, preserving the words into which our ancestors poured their souls.  The Jewish work of memory is actually twofold, consisting of the twin enterprises known as "Written Torah" and "Oral Torah."

            When we transmit the Written Torah, to employ again the image of Noah's ark, we maintain the integrity of the vessel.  A scribe writes the words of Torah on animal skin, with a quill and using ink produced according to the most stringent ancient specifications.  Not one of the 304,805 letters may be changed, and a single mistake renders the scroll unfit for use.  In this way, we keep the "ark" of the ancient words watertight and protected from the destructive chaos of the flood.

            In the second realm of Torah however, Oral Torah, we throw open the doors of the ancient words, and we open our own hearts to receive the living soul within the words.  We listen with every fiber of our being.  And we add our own voice to the endless flow of argument and interpretation.  We actively engage with the ancient soul hiding within, and an electric spark arcs across time and space, putting us in direct relationship with the soul that first spoke those words of Torah.