Studying The Torah

Why should we keep learning the Torah and teach it to our children?

            The question is valid because, as noted by Simon Uriel- the 94-year-old legendary Bible Professor at Bar-Ilan University- today, “we increasingly lack a link with the Bible; it is no longer a source of inspiration and guidance. It has lost its magic.”

            This assertion is, of course, a little bit dramatic. Some two hundred thirty years ago, the French philosopher Voltaire had already noted that “the Bible is more famous than known.” Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, quipped: “We say that we have given the Bible to the world. Have we not given it away?

            Undoubtedly, the Torah today doesn’t have the same position among Jews as of yore. A not-too-long-ago study in Israel found that Bible study was perceived as uninteresting or irrelevant by most students in public schools because of the religious meaning assigned to it.

            This is to take a feeble view of the Torah. Arguably, the Torah is the creation of the genius of the Jewish people and, as such, is a constitutive part of our culture, of who we are. The fact that the other two monotheistic religions accepted the Bible as the Holy Script reinforces the conclusion that what the Torah says is of universal and not of parochial value.

Harry Gersh-the oldest student ever to enroll as a freshman at Harvard (he was 63 years old), said that the Torah “and the books that have grown out of it have guided Jews for several thousand years in their attempt to do good, be good, and build a good world. It would have been impossible to get as far in history as we have without the help of this book.”

            One can dismiss the Torah as irrelevant only if it is thought that the past has no bearing on the present.

            But Judaism is, if nothing else, the custodian of past experiences. A patrimony that diminishes its value unless it is accrued from generation to generation, providing new and vital interpretations to guide contemporary and future generations.

            The Torah is not a collection of books that can just be read; it must be studied. Dedicating a few minutes a week to studying the Torah should be part of the schedules we accept to form part of our healthy physical and mental life.

            There’s a difference between studying the Torah to widen our mental, spiritual, and ethical horizons and studying the Torah as a form of worship.