AUTHOR: MOSES (ATTRIBUTED TO)
DATE: C. SIXTH/FIFTH CENTURY BC
The Torah is a sacred book of the Jewish faith, consisting of the first five books of the Tanakh (the entire Hebrew Bible, which also includes the ‘Writings’ (‘Ketuvim’) and the ‘Prophets’ (‘Nevi’im’). It is also sometimes referred to by the Greek name Pentateuch (Five Books). Tradition says that the Torah was written down by Moses after God communicated its contents to him on Mount Sinai. That would suggest a dating somewhere around the second half of the second millennium BC. Others hold that it is the product of multiple authors and the date of its production is uncertain, although there are references to a scribe called Ezra reading from the books in the fifth century BC, not long after the time of the Babylonian captivity.
Written in Hebrew, the Torah comprises the same five books that make up the start of the Christian Old Testament (itself equivalent to the Tanakh). These are ‘Bereshit’ (‘Genesis’), ‘Shemot’ (‘Exodus’), ‘Vayikra’ (‘Leviticus’), ‘Bamidbar’ (‘Numbers’) and ‘Devarim’ (‘Deuteronomy’). It begins with God’s creation of the world and the Fall of Man, leading on to the emergence of the people of Israel, their exodus into Egypt and subsequent enslavement, Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai when he receives the Ten Commandments, the covenant between God and the Jewish people, their forty years in the wilderness, and Moses’ death just as the promised land of Canaan comes into view.
SCROLL UP, SCROLL UP
In 2014, a fifteenth-century copy of the Torah was put up for auction and achieved a record price of US$3.87 million when it was bought by an anonymous bidder. The book was printed in Bologna in January 1482 and, according to the auctioneers Christie’s, represented ‘the very first appearance in print of all five books of the Pentateuch as well as the first to which vocalization and cantillation marks have been added’. The back of the book, printed on vellum, carried the signatures of three censors active in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and confirmed that the volume had been housed in an Italian library at the time. The previous record for a Hebrew book had been US$2.41 million for an ornately embellished prayer book made in Florence in the fifteenth century.
As well as providing the origin story of the Jewish people, the Torah also provides guidance on God’s laws (there are over six hundred commandments across the five books) covering ritualistic practice, civil laws and moral obligations. As such, the Torah is central to Jewish life in general, and not just in regard to religious observance. The Torah as used in worship takes the form of a hand-inscribed scroll (Sefer Torah), although it is more usually studied or privately read in book form. It is customarily read at the synagogue on Monday, Wednesday and the Sabbath (Saturday), as well as on assorted holy days throughout the year. The entire scroll is read in sequence during the course of the year, beginning at the festival of Sukkot in September or October.
Given its sacred status, the production and handling of the Torah is governed by numerous rules. While early versions were written on papyrus, most for use in worship are inscribed onto kosher animal skins (usually those of a cow). The text on a Sefer Torah must be written out in faultless Hebrew and devoid of any of the indicators of how each word should be pronounced so that the faithful must have pre-existing knowledge of the text if they are required to recite it. Each page of parchment (subsequently joined together into a scroll) has 42 lines and the entire Torah is made up of 304,805 letters. Should a scribe (or sofer) make a single mistake in producing the text, they are obliged to start the entire process again.
Once completed, the scroll is kept in an Ark (effectively a cupboard at the front of the synagogue shielded behind a curtain). When it is to be read from, it is laid out on a reading desk (bimah) and then lifted by the handles above the head of the reader so that all may view it. Each Torah is not merely a copy of the sacred text, but a sacred object in itself. For instance, if a scroll is accidentally dropped, the entire congregation may be obliged to fast for forty days. Moreover, the artefact plays a prominent role in other ceremonies, such as the Bar Mitzvah ‘coming-of-age’ ritual.
As the foundation document of the earliest of the three great Abrahamic religions, the Torah has not only served as a spiritual guide but as a formative influence on Jewish society and global history for well over two thousand years. Hillel the Elder, a Jewish religious leader who was born in Babylon around the first century BC and was living in Jerusalem in the time of King Herod, commented: ‘That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation.’