The Torah
Did you know that the Torah, the first five books of the Jewish Bible, is the Jewish people's most cherished and holy text? It is about 3,300 years old. The Torah is even too sacred to be touched by human hands, so it is read with the help of a yad, or pointer.
The Torah is so special that it must be written by a sofer, a person who writes a new copy of the Torah according to specific rules. The sofer must go to the ritual bath, the mikveh, before he or she begins working on the Torah. The sofer must write with a quill (feather) and ink on parchment (the skin of a kosher cow). Also, the new Torah must be so perfect that if the sofer makes a mistake, that section must be rewritten.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance has two Torah scrolls on display in its Multimedia Learning Center. One scroll looks dirty and torn because it was almost destroyed by the Nazis (German soldiers) in Tarnow, Poland, during World War II. The other Torah scroll is also ripped because it had to be protected from the Nazis.
On Sept. 3, 1942, the Nazis were preparing to send Jews from Wolbrom, Poland, to their deaths. A rabbi and other Jewish leaders in the town collected as many Torahs as they could and buried them in a Jewish cemetery. They wanted to protect the Torahs from being damaged or burned by the Nazis. After the war, the son of one of the men who buried the scrolls found a Torah in an elderly woman's cellar. He gave the Torah scroll to the Museum of Tolerance.
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Visit motlc.wiesenthal.com for more details or call (310) 772-2502.
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Leah E. Angell wrote this Learning Link for the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance, 9786 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles.
