We Are the Torah’s Voice

Rabbi Sam Cohon’s Talk for Our Torah Dedication 10 17 2022

Tonight, on the wonderful holiday of Simchat Torah, the celebration of Torah, we gather to dedicate our congregation’s own Torah.  The Torah, the best-preserved text in human history, is a sacred writing that has not changed in 2000 years and more, a teaching that is the source for nearly all of Western Civilization and continues to bring joy and passion and inspiration to us every week, indeed every day.  And it is entirely appropriate, and quite wonderful, to celebrate the Torah, and our own beginnings with our new scroll.  When we read the opening words of Genesis tonight, we will truly begin a new chapter, a new book, a new creation, a new Torah adventure together.

For the Torah is amazing, wonderful in a way that virtually nothing else ever can be.  Tonight as we dedicate a new/old Torah, this marvelous text can help us recover the fresh wonder, that holy creative spark that can grow into a flame in each of us.

It is an exceptional honor for our congregation Beit Simcha to fulfill this great 614th Mitzvah of creating a Torah of our own.  Well, in truth, we are rededicating this beautiful kosher scroll tonight, our very first Torah that we actually own as our own yerushah, our possession and inheritance, to help us fulfill and deepen our central responsibility: to learn and teach Torah to our community.

This Torah will serve us, and we pray many generations to come, and help us forge our own link in the Shalshelet haKabbalah, the sacred chain of tradition that has kept our people alive and strong and vital. 

By making this beautiful Torah, created in Israel near the date of the founding of the state, by making it the work of our entire congregation and community we are observing the words written late in the Book of Deuteronomy, which insist that this Torah “lo nfleit hee mimecha v’lo r’chokah hi—it’s not too amazing for you to understand, not is it far away from you.  It’s not in heaven… neither is it across the sea… rather it’s very close to you, in your mouths and in your hearts to observe it.”

This is the Torah whose words Leviticus tells us in Acharei Mot, v’chai bahem, we should live by them.

This is very much our Torah, the Torah that came down from Mt. Sinai in the Book of Exodus, Shmot, to live in our midst, the Torah that is the source of instruction and meaning in our personal lives, the centerpiece of our congregational life.  This will be our Torah to chant and read, to carry and to kiss, to dance with, to raise high and bring close to our hearts.  It will become our teacher and our children’s teacher and, God-willing the teacher of our descendants for many generations to come.  Its elegant writing, its beautiful Hebrew calligraphy will be indelibly inscribed in our vision and in our hearts throughout our days.

It has taken much effort to reach this wonderful evening.  I would like to personally thank our fabulous Fundraising Committee, who embraced this idea and ran with it.  This is now officially part of the DNA of Beit Simcha: before we even announced this project, before we had a specific scroll in mind, people clamored to support it and make it happen.  My deepest gratitude to Dr. Sloan King, Lee Kane, Emmet Zimberoff, MeMe Aguila, and Gary Abrahams, who meet with me weekly and have contributed time, talent, energy, love and, of course, their own generosity. And we are deeply grateful to all of you have given so much to bring this Torah to us, and to connect yourselves with it in a valuable and meaningful way.

But for all of the wonderful people who have worked and donated to make this beautiful scroll OUR TORAH, the next person is the most important in this experience.  Because the next great participant in this holy process is you. 

In medieval Jewish literature the consonants of the Hebrew Alef-Bet are compared to a body, and the vowels to a soul.  Yet a Torah scroll is an unvocalized text written only with consonants, no vowels.  In fact, a Torah scroll which has vowels written into it is not kosher, and would be unfit for use. 

You see, the Torah requires that each person, each us must supply the vowels, the vocalization, the voice, in order for it to become animate, alive, heard.  Without the person the sacred text of Torah remains mute.  When you add your own human voice to it, it comes alive.

Without you this Torah will remain just a book, a furled scroll in a cabinet, silent, useless.  But when you enter into the world of Torah, share its great wisdom, when you become its voice, then this Torah will come alive, and we will all be able to live by it, in light and joy and holiness. 

And so, we pray together, on page 3 of your booklets: Make the words of Your Torah sweet in our mouths and the mouths of Your people Israel, so that we and our children and the children of all the house of Israel may know You by studying Torah for its own sake. We bless You, God, who teaches Torah to our people Israel.