After the Joan Goodman lectures in February a member of the audience asked if she could see a Torah Scroll. Rabbi Roderick Young duly obliged inviting a number of interested non-Jewish visitors onto the Bimah whilst he removed a scroll and presented it for their inspection at close quarters.
A gathering of some 10 to 12 people were then privy to an explanation of what the Torah is, how they are written on sections of velum by hand and then stitched together to form a continuous scroll containing the five books of Moses. A portion of the Torah is read every Shabbat throughout the year starting with the book Genesis through to the end of the book of Deuteronomy.
The Hebrew Festival Simchat Torah literally meaning ‘rejoicing of the law’ celebrates the point where the last portion of Deuteronomy is completed and the first portion of Genesis is started…. ‘In the beginning G-d created the heaven and the earth.’
It was also explained that there is a special form of chanting used for ‘reading the torah’ and this was ably demonstrated by our Minister Daniel Rosenthal. The scroll is never touched by the human hand and a silver pointer is used to point to the text so that the wording can be followed. This silver pointer is called a ‘Yad’ and is in the form of a small hand with an outstretched finger. All in all this was a wonderful impromptu learning experience for those present.
