Yesterday I spent the last few precious hours of my weekend reading the Bereshit (the first portion of the Torah, the first few chapters of Genesis) with a few studious Jews and one studious Canadian. I’m Jewish but I don’t know anything about the religion. I never went to Hebrew school, and when my family was invited to seders the other kids would ask the questions in the Haggadah because it was part of the ritual and I would ask the questions because I really didn’t know. Yesterday was my first time really reading the Old Testament, going line by line, parsing and struggling and flinging out theories. It was the best kind of seminar. The Wikipedia page on the Bereshit warns that the article “might be too long to read or navigate comfortably.” There’s not a lot in this ancient religion that’s comfortable. But that’s what makes its literature so exciting.
The plan is to read a portion of the Torah every week until we’re done, attempting to catch up with the world of Jews reading the weekly parashah (portion) in temple. I can’t speak for the others but I’m trying to be a better Jew. The ranch lifestyle isn’t hugely compatible with this goal: our first meeting had to be moved to accommodate a pig slaughter on a Saturday. Yikes.
But it’s never too late to go back to the beginning! Being wholly ignorant about something is actually quite exciting. I got to ask so many questions yesterday. And you know the great thing about Jews? No neat, comfortable answers for you. Only antediluvian poetry and a thousand different commentaries with confusingly similar names.
