What is Torah Portion of the week?
Torah is the word denoting the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the books attributed to Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The word Torah means teachings and it refers also to the myriad laws in Jewish Halachah (Law), which are rabbinical interpretations of the five books of Moses and of other rabbinic sources.
The Torah is believed by people of faith to be the Word of G-d, given to mankind through the Israelites by G-d’s servant, Moses. The core essence of the Jewish people revolves around the Torah. In it Israel’s ancient history is outlined: the covenant between G-d and the descendants of Jacob (later named Israel); the exodus from Egypt; the pledge of the Promised Land and the settling of that land; the outlining of the commandments for Israel and for all of mankind to follow, etc.
In fact, it is by the Torah that the Jewish People is defined as a nation. It is probably the only nation in the world that its nationhood is based on its faith (for other nations, it is their geographic location, their language, their ethnicity and shared history and culture, but not their faith; many nations are Christian, but this is not what defines the Swedish people as Swedish or the French people as French).
Even secular Jews in Israel find that their life is affected tremendously by these scriptures, written thousands of years ago. Baby boys at the age of eight days go through a brith – the ritual circumcision, a continuation of a custom from the days of Abraham, whether they are born to secular people or religious ones; adults and kids have the Sabbath day (Saturday) as a day off work or school, even if some don't observe it religiously; everybody celebrates the Jewish holidays with their families in the biblically prescribed time and manner and many people keep Kosher by eating only foods that are permitted in the Torah.
The Torah is the beginning, the foundation of the people of Israel. Despite almost two thousand years of exile and dispersion among the nations (more often than not accompanied by harsh persecution and discriminatory legislature against them), the Jews have managed to preserve their nationhood and faith. Jews in places as remote as Yemen, Persia, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, etc., have all kept their core identity as the Jewish people, as Israel, intact.
Differences in looks, race, color, language and culture abound among the different exiles, with black Jews in Ethiopia, white Jews in Russia, brown/yellow Jews in the Middle East, etc. On the surface, it looks like they couldn’t possibly be ethnically related, but in fact, what they have in common is their Torah based faith and the shared fate that results from it.
It is often said that more than the Jews have kept the Torah, the Torah has kept the Jews. By adhering to the Torah, the founding document of their nationhood, the Jews have been able to keep their identity as a nation and survive everything that has come their way.
In the days of the Assyrian exile, the first major exile the Israelites have experienced, the sacred text was long forgotten and life in exile became devoid of Torah. It might well be because of this detachment from their founding faith that the ten lost tribes of Israel assimilated into the gentiles around them into oblivion. Their biological genes are still in this world, to be sure, but no one knows who their descendants are today.
The remaining tribes, those of Judea and parts of Benjamin and Levy (and a few from every tribe who joined them in faith) survived with their ethnic and religious identity intact and are the Jews of today (the word Jew comes from the word Judea, the main tribe that has survived). Their leaders, Ezra and Nehemia, two scribes, decided to enact a custom by which each week on Shabbat, the Sabbath day, a consecutive portion of the Torah is read in congregation.
To do that, our sages divided the five books of Moses to 54 portions, two more than the 52 weeks in a given year, so that the whole five books are read from beginning to end every year (some weeks two portions are read on the same Sabbath day). This custom continues to our day, and the beauty of it is that in every synagogue around the world, be it orthodox, reform, conservative or other, everyone reads the exact same portion, learns and discusses it in depth.
The circle of reading the Torah starts in the fall, after the holidays of Sukkot (Tabernacles) and Simchat Torah (the Joy of Torah). Each of the 54 portions is named after the first word or phrase appearing in it.
In this weekly blog we will discuss each torah portion in its respective week, the week it is read in synagogues around the world. After 52 blog entries, we will finish a full circle of Torah portions, on Simchat Torah of next year. So if you are in for the ride, you are very welcome to join me.