Torah refers to the Five Books of Moses, the entire Hebrew Bible, and the entire corpus of religious Jewish knowledge. Torah is how the Creator shares the purpose, intent, and desire behind all that exists.
I’m kinda disappointed about this Torah. I keep reading on your site about it being the ultimate divine wisdom. To me, it reads like a book of stories. If it’s really a divine document, shouldn’t it read more like one of those ancient mystical texts, like the wild and wonderful Zohar or the cryptic and mystical Book of Formation?
The Torah’s commandments are brief and sometimes cryptic. As recorded in the Talmud, rabbinic tradition and scholarship unpacks, elucidates, and expands them into Judaism as we know it.
G‑d told Moses that he will give him "the Torah and the commandments." Why did G‑d add the word "commandments?" Are there any commandments which are not included in the Torah?
Imagine Albert Einstein walking down the street and dropping a pen. As he bends down to pick it up, the unfortunate occurs. His pants split. He heads back home, and mends the pants...
Why do the rabbis add so many laws to the Torah? Isn't that what caused Adam and Eve to sin--the fact that Eve made unwarranted additions to G‑d's law?
In what way are the laws of the Talmud "the wisdom and will of G-d"? What's so "wise" about the how to divide a garment that two people are fighting over? Why G-d would "will" the procedures for buying a donkey?
How could Jacob have studied the Torah, if it was given to Moses centuries later? Did he learn, in advance, how Laban would trick him on his wedding night or how Joseph would thrown in a pit and sold as a slave by his brothers?
I wonder about how the Orthodox view the fluidity of the Torah and the teachings of the past. Clearly there are aspects of the Torah that have been outdated since it was written, such as stoning etc.
Democracy and human rights are cornerstones of our moral vision in the modern era. Where do we Jews fit--historically and ideologically--into this picture?
Didn’t G‑d give Moses the Torah while he was on top of Mount Sinai away from the rest of the Jews who were waiting down below? Isn’t this similar to the stories of Jesus and Mohammad, because no one was actually there to verify that anything was unequivocally given from G‑d to Moses?
The black are the letters we see, while the white, the inverse space between the black, are the letters we don't see. Some souls, like the black letters of the Torah, have a clear purpose and focus. Others are more like the white letters...
I recently had occasion to pray in a Sephardic synagogue, and they kept the Torahs in some kind of ornamental cylindrical case with the scroll in the upright position. Then, when it came time to read the Torah, they simply set it on a flat table and cracked open the case.
Why does a Torah scroll
have two poles or rollers, while the Megillah (Book of Esther), which is also
read from a scroll of parchment, only has one rollers (or none at all)?