E-Book Overview
The Torah is both the most sacred object and the most sacred text inJudaism. It consists of the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus,Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The word “Torah” comes from the sameroot as the Hebrew word hora’ah (hoe-rah-ah), which means “instruction” or“teaching.” The Torah’s purpose, simply stated, is to provide people withinstructions for finding and following the path of God and the path to God.Although the words in the Torah, which is also known as the Five Books ofMoses, consists of exactly 304,805 letters, the great sages of Jewish traditionteach that all the wisdom in the universe is hidden within these letters. Jewishtradition looks carefully at these letters and at the words they form, and greatsages throughout history have provided — and continue to provide — theproper instruction for analyzing the Torah text and revealing its divine messages.
E-Book Content
01_173459 ffirs.qxp 11/26/07 11:15 PM Page i The Torah FOR DUMmIES by Arthur Kurzweil ‰ 01_173459 ffirs.qxp 11/26/07 11:16 PM Page ii The Torah For Dummies® Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2008 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the Publi