Jewish Mythology [antikvár]

IntroductionIt was the custom in some medieval Jewish communities for a child to have his first taste of the Torah by actually eating some selected Biblical verses. The Hebrew letters of Scripture would be smeared in honey on a slate, and the child would lick them avidly, thus fulfilling the verses: 'How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth' (Psalm 119:103), and '[The scroll] was in my mouth like honey in sweetness' (Ezekiel 3:3).The Torah in its narrowest sense signifies the Pentateuch, otherwise known as the Five Books of Moses, the first part of the Hebrew Bible. In its wider sense, however, it denotes also all the ramifications of the Pentateuch - the commentaries that the rabbis wrote upon it, the laws that are derived from it, the elaborations of the narrative portions - in fact, practically the whole of Jewish religious literature can be subsumed under the all-embracing title of Torah. Since this Torah derives ultimately from God, there can be for the Jew no more worthy object of study. 'Turn it over and over again, for everything is in it. Contemplate it and grow old and grey over it, and do not digress from it, for you can have no better rule than [the Torah]' [Mishnah Avot 5:22).One can see therefore that the usual translation of the word 'Torah' as 'Law' is inadequate. Its basic meaning is rather 'teaching' or 'instruction'. But itOpposite. Celebration of the Festival of Simhat Torah, the Rejoicing in the Torah, an October festival which marks the completion of the annual cycle of synagogue readings from the Five Books of Moses. The scroll containing the Mosaic books is carried ioyfully in procession.is even more than the solid and revered bed-rock of Jewish faith. It is also an object of love. The Sefer Torah (Scroll of the Torah) from which portions are read weekly in the synagogue is a Jewish community's most treasured possession. At times it becomes almost a person, as when on the Festival of Rejoicing in the Torah [Simhat Torah) a Jew takes the scroll in his arms and dances with it in joyful abandon; or when it is counted as one of the minyan, the quorum of ten needed for the recitation of certain statutory prayers.The Torah is beloved, of course, not for its own physical nature, but for its sacred contents. The laws, interpreted as they have been down the ages in countless commentaries, codified, and still subject to minute dissection and discussion, are incumbent on every observant Jew. And the Biblical narratives have been analysed, explained and elaborated to such an extent that a Jew 'of the old school' can hardly distinguish between what Scripture actually says and what later expositors have understood it to say. The legal content of the Torah is known as halaiihah, while the narratives form the basis of aggadah. Aggadah simply means 'telling', and this 'telling' can cover practically any Espect of human life. It can fill in the details of a Biblical story, reconcile apparent contradictions, answer questions (and pose them too!), incorporate fables from other sources, make moral deductions, add contemporary historical allusions, discuss relevant theological topics, indulge in biographical anecdotes, and it can even make remarks of a legal character which properly belong to the realm of halakhah. The aggadah can be pithy and opaque. It can also ramble, moving from one story to another, and from one