You Own Personal Torah: Rosh HaShanah 1 5769

We Jews tell time in an interesting way. No, I am not referring to what is known as “Jewish Standard Time,” the notion that the entire Jewish people is running perpetually fifteen minutes late. And no, I am also not referring to our lunar calendar and its complicated nineteen year cycle. No, instead I am referring to how we, the Jewish people, keep time according to our holy Torah.

Think about it: a few moments ago we just completed the reading for the first day of Rosh HaShanah. Each time we hear those opening words:
וַֽיהוָֹ֛ה פָּקַ֥ד אֶת־שָׂרָ֖ה כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֣ר אָמָ֑ר
“And God remembered Sarah as God had promised,”
we know that yuntif has officially arrived. And so too with tomorrow’s Torah reading, when we read The Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, that infamous tale of fatherhood and faith, we know that the New Year has begun.

Or perhaps for some of us, it is not the words of the Torah which signal a change in the calendar, but rather it is the music we use to elucidate the text. Maybe you noticed those first few notes of High Holy Day trope, and for you, that was the sign that the New Year is finally here.

But no matter how it strikes you, can any of us really imagine a Rosh HaShanah, without these important texts from the Torah? Furthermore, can we conceive of a calendar year without celebrating the joyous holiday of Simhat Torah, which marks the completion of yet another year of reading our Torah? In fact, other than the Torah, can you think of another book which compels us as readers to start it all over again as soon as we put it down? I mean not even Harry Potter can make us do that!

What I am saying is that we Jews, we tell time by our Torah. And there is good reason for this. When we use the rhythms of the Torah as the timepiece of our lives we transform the text from an impersonal monologue, a book that simply gives us stories and laws, into an intimate dialogue. When we allow the Torah to penetrate the fabric of our lives, that is when we truly become connected to our Holy Tradition, that is when we truly become the People of the Book.

As you are aware, there are 613 Mitzvot, or commandments found in the Torah (and as my father would say: on a good day I can usually perform about 370.) Of these 613 commandments there are some that remain relevant to our lives as modern Jews, and there are others that have faded away with the destruction of the Temple. There are Mitzvot that are Beyn Adam l’Makom (Between us and God) and there are those that are Beyn Adam l’havero (those that are between us and our fellow human beings.) And finally There are positive commandments, (These are the Thou shalt variety) and there are negative commandments (those are the Though shalt not types.)

Today I would like to focus on one of the lesser know positive commandments, one that you may not have even know was a mitzvah at all! And although it does not appear in the Ten Commandments, and it may seem impossible to achieve at first glance, I think it is a mitzvah that is of the utmost of importance and I want to be certain that everyone here today has the ability to fulfill this commandment in the coming year.

I am talking about the commandment to write your own Torah.

That’s right, according to Maimonides (the Rambam) in his Sefer haMitzvot (his book which enumerates each and every commandment found in the Torah) each of us is required to write his or her own Torah. In fact, he explains that if we can, we should write it with our own hand: because the person who writes it with their own hand כאלו קבלו מהר סיני , it is as though they received the Torah personally at Mount Sinai!

Now let’s take a step away from the Rambam for a moment and imagine what it would look like if each of us here today fulfilled this commandment. First of all, I bet you are probably thinking that it would be even more crowded in here than it is now! Imagine each of us lugging around a giant Torah. And it’s not like you could just stick your Torah under your seat until the time came to use it.

But furthermore, some of you may be asking, what is the point of writing a personal Torah for ourselves, if the text itself would remain the same? How could we ever tell our own personal Sefer Torah from our neighbors? Wouldn’t my text be the same as yours?

And you might be right. Maybe the actual words, the monologue of the text would be the same in each of our Sifrei Torah, but what about the dialogue? Sure the columns might look identical, but what about what is written in the margins?

So imagine each of us did have our own personal Torah, what would it look like? Where in your Torah would you make your mark? What would the notes that you scribbled in pencil here and there to mark the monumental occasions of your life say? How would you show that the text is not simply a monologue, but rather the Torah is in dialogue with our lives?

Let me show you my Torah, and give you an example of what I mean. Here. . . right here next to Parshat Miketz in the Book of Genesis, there is a note. It is almost faded, but I can still make it out. It reads “Joel WUZ here, Bar Mitzvah 1993.” In fact, it looks as though I even had some of my friends sign it there too?

Oh, here is another one, this one was written in big letters next to Parshat Bamidbar, the beginning of the Book of Numbers: it says Joel and Eliana Forever; you see Bamidbar was our wedding parsha, and each year we celebrate on Shabbat Bamidbar with honey, instead of salt, on our challah.

Here is one more. This one is written in black ink next to Parshat Shmini in the book of Leviticus, it reads HaRav Gershon ben Sh’muel v’Sarah z”l; in memory of my teacher and my mentor Rabbi Gershon Schwartz, the rabbi who first taught me how to hold the quill, how to make the letters.

And there are so many more.

But what would it say on your Torah? Where would you have made your marks in the margins?

But I’m sure some of you out there in the congregation are wondering right now . . .
just how realistic is it, that each of us could in fact write our own personal Sefer Torah. Some of you no doubt would say, “But Rabbi, I have terrible handwriting in English! Let alone trying to write in Hebrew....and with a quill no less!?” Others of you are probably thinking . . . “Rabbi, I am a total klutz. I couldn’t get more than a few lines into my Torah without smudging the letters with my palm, or even knocking over the whole bottle of ink.”
Well, I assure you, that even for those of you out there with two left thumbs, this important mitzvah can still be fulfilled.

The Ramabam explains that if it is impossible for an individual to write their own Sefer Torah in their own handwriting - then they can still appoint a shaliach, an emissary to do so on their behalf. That’s right, just because we may not have good handwriting, or we may not know the letters, or we may be clumsy, does not exempt us from the commandment to write our own personal Torah. And luckily this year, we all can do exactly this.

I want to tell you about an extremely exciting event in the life of Temple Emanu-El. This coming year, will be Temple Emanu-El’s Year of the Torah. And we as individuals, and yes as a community will have the ability to engage in this important mitzvah - the commandment to write our own personal sefer Torah.

Rabbi Franklin has appointed a very talented sofer, a Torah writing scribe, to create a brand new Torah for our community. To our knowledge this is the first time in a generation that a Sefer Torah has been written specifically with our community in mind, and each of us will have the ability to make this Torah our own.

On the weekend of October 11th and 12th, our scirbe, Jamie Shear will be visiting our fabulous community to speak with us and to show us how a Torah is written. On shabbat he will talk in the Main Sanctuary, at our Minyan Hadash and at Junior congregation about the intricate process of writing a Sefer Torah. And on Sunday the 12th, from 10:00-11:30 he will be with us for an interactive, hands-on program that will give each of us here today the opportunity to not only watch him at his meticulous art, but we will also have the chance to try it ourselves. There will be pens, quills, parchment and ink, and each of us will get to experience the joy of engaging in this mitzvah with our own hands.

This sefer Torah will become the jewel in the crown of our Torah collection, not only because of the beauty of the text, of the monologue; but also because of the meaning of the dialogue, because of our communal connection to this monumental act. It will not only become our own personal Torah because we ourselves appointed a sofer to write it, but it will become our own personal Torah because of what it represents.

And there in bold letters, in the metaphorical margins of this Torah, our Torah, will read the following inscription:

“This Torah is dedicated to our Teacher, our friend, our mentor, Lea Eliash. A human being who taught us that the words of the Torah become truly holy when they are bound up with the beauty of our lives.”

Although I never had the opportunity to know Lea in person, I can not tell you how many times her name has come up in conversation and through personal anecdotes in my short time here. Whether it comes from a student in her first ever class in Religious school, or a Jew-by-choice who was carefully and lovingly tutored by her, or a woman who would find the time to drive Lea to temple when she became old and frail: their words are always the same. Lea was a beautiful person. Her external beauty was a reflection of her internal beauty, despite a life shattered by the terrors of the Holocaust.

I have no doubt, that had Lea written her own personal Torah while she was alive, its margins would be filled references not only to those unimaginably torturous moments of her youth, but also with the myriad of moments when she found God in the words of the Torah. The moments when her students triumphed. The moments when those who loved her achieved. And of course the moments when her beloved community here at Temple Emanu-El shared in times of joy together.

And so in memory of Lea, I return to an earlier question? What would it say on your own personal Torah? Where would you have made your marks in the margins?


I am sure that some of you here would have the margins of your Sefer Torah fully adorned with notes corresponding to significant events in your lives, in your family’s lives and in the lives of your friends. But I wonder if there is anyone here who worries that the margins of their own personal sefer Torah would be bare. Not due to the lack of momentous occasions in their lives, but instead because for some of us the Torah is only a monologue. Many of us keep our time and our calendar according to our Blackberry, or our daily planner, instead of by the rhythms of the Torah. And although we can all agree that it is important to live according to the modern world, to live according to the pacings of January, February and March; can’t we also agree that we as Jews should try harder to keep time according to the Parshiyot of our Torah: B’reshit, Noah, Lech L’cha.

And so I implore you, let this be the year when you bind yourself to the words of the Torah. Let this be the year when your turn the monologue of the text into a dialogue with your life . Let this be the year when the rhythm of your weeks is led by the beat of the Torah’s drum. Let this be the year in which Lea Eliash’s memory is imprinted upon our community. Let this be the year when we fulfill the chance of a lifetime: the chance to write your own personal Torah.

Shanah Tova u’Metukah, and May we all be inscribed in the Book of Life.