Living Torah

Today there are more than seven million Jews in the United States. As with Americans of all ethnicities and religious persuasions, Jews can identify with and embrace their heritage in any number of ways. Alternatively, they can choose to distance themselves from anything distinctively Jewish.

For millennia, the Torah – literally, instruction – the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, has been a centerpiece of Jewish study, thought, and action. Throughout the years, the Torah has been interpreted and applied to life in varying times and places. It has long been customary for Jews to read chapters of the Torah each week as part of an annual cycle of study and synagogue ritual.

In the third decade of the twenty-first century, there are Jews who question or doubt the continuing relevance of Jewish texts to their lives. Yet, the search for meaning is enduring, and most American Jews are interested in engaging with a heritage in which they take pride. It is, primarily, for such readers that this book is designed. At the same time, there are people who are not Jewish for whom a book unpacking a Jewish understanding of the Torah might be of interest.

The aim of this work is to share ideas, themes, values, and practices that are all part of the living Torah, with full awareness that personal meaning is, by definition, unique to each individual. “Living Torah” describes both Torah as a vibrant text and those who lead Torah-informed lives. “Torah-informed” by no means implies uniformity of life-style.

There are a number of books that explore the meaning that Judaism can hold for contemporary Jews and others interested in the wisdom expressed in its classical texts. While these books draw upon classical sources and offer interesting perspectives, none undertakes to systematically introduce the reader to the richness of the Torah text. The uniqueness of this very accessible volume is that it identifies a central theme in each of the five books of the Torah, and, following exploration of the substance of each book, looks at implications of the book’s key theme for the lives of contemporary readers

The book is comprised of ten chapters, organized as follows: a chapter synopsizing a book of the Torah and identifying its central theme, followed by a chapter applying that theme to the lived experience of Jews in the twenty-first century. The themes explored are: (a) the Jews’ relationship to the land of Israel; (b) purpose in history; (c) the pursuit of holiness; (d) living in community; (e) Jewish learning.