The holiday of Simchat Torah is fast approaching, and with its arrival Jews around the world will rejoice that the yearly Torah cycle begins again this Shabbat. Every week, a Torah portion will be read out loud in Synagogue, starting with Parshat Bereishit in which the world is created. As each Torah portion unfolds, the story of the world, the Jewish people, and so much more is told. Every year the words are the same, and yet every year I find new meaning because I, and the world I live in, have changed.
Inspired by several of the wonderful works of nonfiction I’ve reviewed recently, (still glad we decided to expand the nonfiction section), BookishlyJewish would like to ask our readers to consider reading the original Jewish book – the Torah – with us. Each week we’ll post up a thought on the coming Torah portion, and a Jewish book that helps illustrate that point. Ideally, we’ll have those selections up by the Thursday the parsha is read, although thanks to holiday, the book pairing for Bereishit will post this Friday one day before we read it on Shabbat.
I am not a Torah scholar. I have no Rabbinic training, but I firmly believe every Jew can read and learn from the Torah if they wish, and share their thoughts and reactions with the wider world. Therefore, I’ll be reading each portion and choosing what I find meaningful to me – even if it’s just one sentence that struck a chord. I will be using a Stone edition Chumash, because while my biblical Hebrew is actually fairly facile, I’d still like the English translation handy, and it has both Rashi and Targum commentaries without crowding the page in tiny print. In depth learning with centuries of commentary is something I hope to inspire some readers to perform, but for this project, the goal is a reading of the pshat – or simple meaning of the words – with help from what most people consider the two most basic, necessary, explanatory commentaries. Readers can then go back and read the portions that most resonate with them and include all the commentators they wish.
Book selection is not be limited to nonfiction, or books sans sex and swearing. Everything from high heat romance to picture books is fair game if we feel it has a pertinent lesson to share. As always, we have to know a book exists to consider it, so please feel free to fill out our suggest a book form with Jewish books both new and old, for consideration. Similarly, if you would like to guest post a week, send in a pitch for us to consider. However, know that this project will have a much higher bar for guest posts than book reviews and round ups.
We are still a site that mostly focused of book reviews, round ups, publishing interviews, and lists, but this is a project dear to my personal heart. If it doesn’t speak to you, just skip the Thursday posts and focus on the reviews and gifting guides. I hope you’ll give it a chance though. I am a person of the book, and I’d love if you would read along with me.
I love this idea! I’ll try to join as often as I can. So glad you’re doing this.