I couldn't believe it. There was my son, all six feet of him, staring down (and I do mean down...) at me with pleading eyes.
"Please, Dad. Can't we go see the new Star Wars movie?"
"But Kiv, haven't you already seen it?"
He grinned sheepishly. "Eight times."
"What?!"
"It's a complex movie, Dad; you have to see it that many times to get all the lines and see all the sight gags."
"I guess."
We went to the movie, Kivie reciting along with the characters on the screen and intermittently giggling at something I obviously had missed. It was a joy for him, an involvement with something that really mattered. It mattered so much that he kept watching it again and again.
October 17 is Simchat Torah, when we celebrate our yearly cycle of Torah-reading. We finish reading the Torah and immediately begin reading it again. Traditional Jews who take the mitzvah, the commandment, of reading Torah seriously can lip-synch with the Torah reader as well as any audience shouting along with "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." When you read the Torah text every year for twenty or thirty years, all the lines become familiar friends. All the sight gags are noted.
We honor Torah, the first five books of the Bible, here at Temple Brith Shalom. We stand when the scroll is vertical; we stand when we open the ark. We touch it; we kiss it. We listen to chunks of it recited every Friday night and Saturday morning.
It's about time that we read it ourselves.
Our English version of the Torah is less than 400 pages; Most of us read novels of similar length in a week. The Torah text is easier to understand than any descriptions found in a Charles Dickens' classic. It's got more sex and violence than a Danielle Steele book. And, with its evocative language, imagery, commandments, and glimpses of holiness, it's far more worthwhile lip-synching along with than any Lucas Production.
Come celebrate Simchat Torah with us at 7:30p.m. on October 17. And then come to our Adult Education Classes to learn about its contents. Torah study takes place every Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. This is our tradition, our covenant with the Divine. Torah is in your hands; don't drop it.
Rabbi Lipman's September, 2003 Message Return to B'rith Shalom's Home Page
