D’var Torah by Robin Podolsky, October 24, 2004

I’ve been puzzling for days now over what I would say to you tonight. As those of you who are acquainted with me are probably aware, when I find myself at a loss for words, that’s a signal that I’ve been touched by something extraordinary.

As many of you know, I was granted the singular honor of joining with Neil Yerman to scribe the first letter, the bet in the breshit, of Kol Ami’s new sefer torah. Our Rabbi has asked me to talk about what that meant to me.

Well, I know what it meant to me as a Jew. This text, this ancient record of the human encounter with God is what makes us Jews. This text bears the message that every moment is pregnant with meaning, because we were created on purpose by a God Who requires us and Who requires much of us; this text tells us, in its final book, that Torah is not in heaven, but on earth for us to interpret, to argue passionately, to serve as the basis for radically disparate legal rulings that, we will be told, all work in the service of God. Jews come in a variety of shades and sizes, speak many languages and hold radically different views of personhood, Halacha, marriage, sexuality, God, capital punishment, and the American presidential election, but, through our engagement with the moral demands and deep pleasures of this text, we are connected to one another.

Okay—so that’s the kind of talk I feel comfortable with—text talk, which, in Judaism, is God talk. But I was asked how the scribing felt.

I remember Neil’s solicitude and kindness. I remember how soft the parchment was, the slight tug as it accepted the kiss of ink. But the rest…For all my effort beforehand to focus my attention on what would surely be one of the most important events in my life, what I remember is a curious absence of anything I can tell you about. This was one of those moments that commands one’s absolute, immediate availability. I had a sense of what it is to be a clei kodesh, a holy vessel, the moment poured through me and there are no words.

Immediately afterwards, as I sat down, there were tears of joy. Not long after that, of course, there were thoughts and there was study:

We Jews don’t just read the Bible—we study it for interpreted significance, coded meanings, hints that spark on our subconscious—our sacred text has multiple meanings. Beginning, of course, with that first bet in breshit bara Elohim. There are many traditions to tell us why the Torah begins with bet. One teaches that, since only one letter comes before bet, the aleph with the numerical value of one, representing the One and Only God, we are taught, thus, that, prior to creation, only God existed.

Rashi, however, reminds us that b…reshit would be more accurately created as “in the beginning of God’s creation of the heaven and the earth”—this particular creation—we don’t, after all know when the darkness, void and chaos began or how, or what they’re made of…Rashi leaves us with a cosmological mystery, but reminds us that God is the author of creation and that’s what counts.

The Baal Shem Tov, in his earthly wisdom, opines that that the Torah begins with the second letter to tell each of us that “you don't know the first thing about it.”

In Breshit Rabbah, we learn that Bet is the letter for berakhah—blessing. And the letter Bet faces to the front with its arms open to the future. Also that the word Bet means ‘house.’ and there is no household without the loving relationships that require at least two-the value of bet.

Kol Ami, our bet tfillah, our house of prayer is a loving house. In scribing a torah scroll, our house has given life to multitudes. Can we even imagine the generations of Jews who will read from our sefer Torah; who will carry her in loving procession; or become benai mitzvah through her—in one hundred years, will she even be housed on planet earth? Who knows—but as long as Jews contend furiously about what we must do to pursue justice, engaging the varied voices and values within this text--which announces itself as a model of multi-vocality by beginning with two alternative stories in its recounting of creation--Judaism will be nourished from a vital, flowering tree.

Posted by Lee at November 2, 2004 11:28 AM