What is the Torah?

The word

Torah means “teaching” or “instruction”, from a root meaning to guide or aim. It is not only “law”, as it is often translated: it includes the stories of creation, the patriarchs and the Exodus, as well as the commandments.

The written Torah

The Five Books (Chumash) are the first part of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), followed by the Prophets and the Writings. A Torah scroll (Sefer Torah) is written by a scribe on parchment with a quill and special ink; one mistaken letter makes it unfit until corrected. It is read in a yearly cycle in the synagogue, and its 613 commandments are the basis of Jewish law.

The oral Torah

Jewish tradition holds that Moses also received an oral explanation of the written text. Pirkei Avot opens: “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and handed it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets handed it to the men of the Great Assembly.” The Talmud tells of a man who wanted to accept only the written Torah; Hillel showed him that even reading the alphabet depends on a teacher’s tradition. The oral teaching was written down in the Mishnah (about 200 CE) and the Talmud.

How Jews treat it

The congregation stands when the scroll is taken out, it is kissed with the tallit or prayer book, and a worn-out scroll is buried, not discarded. Studying Torah is itself a central commandment.