Torah

Learn how to read a 5,000-year-old language in "five easy lessons"? Five lessons of 90 minutes duration each? Sure. "Sure," says Sheila Bailey, one of the West Coast coordinators of the National Jewish Outreach Program. "Remember, you're not learning to understand Hebrew, just to read it, to pronounce it right." So, for example, this Hanukkah you can recite the blessings that accompany the lighting of the menorah.

Last weekend, we left the city behind and drove about an hour south to my mother-in-law's kibbutz to see the rolling fields of ripening wheat ready to be harvested just before the Shavuot holiday, exactly like it was in ancient times. Shavuot, starting this year at sundown Tuesday, is a festival with three names: Shavuot, which means "the feast of weeks"; Hag HaKatzir, or "harvest holiday"; and Hag HaBikkurim, meaning "the holiday of first fruits," when the tribes of Israel were obligated to bring their fresh wheat, barley and certain fruits to the Great Temple in Jerusalem.

Legislators in Lithuania decided Tuesday to return to the Jewish community hundreds of Torah scrolls taken from Jews during the Holocaust. "This decision is a gesture of goodwill by Lithuania seeking to develop good political and cultural cooperation with the Jewish community," Zibartas Jackunas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament's cultural committee, told Reuters.

Until entering high school, the only thing that made Aaron Liberman stand out on the basketball court was his growing 6-foot-5 frame. He was more of a celebrity for his height than a basketball player among his friends and family. "The summer I entered ninth grade is when a former coach told me that I could make something of this if I really pushed myself," Liberman said. "That's when I started to realize I had some talent. " Now standing 6-9, Liberman has not only become one of the most successful players in Southern California, but the senior forward also has been a driving force in helping a small Jewish school get its first taste of athletic success.

Not until after the donation of a Torah was arranged did the Shomrei Torah Synagogue in West Hills learn just how close its connection to the Ukrainian village of Vinogradov was. "There were some members of our congregation who were from Vinogradov," said Rabbi Eli Schochet, whose temple donated a Torah to the Ukrainian village after a filmmaker launched a nationwide search for one.

Abe Walg on Sunday honored his deceased parents with the most precious gift he could give his synagogue. He presented the Beit Hamidrash temple of Woodland Hills with its first new Torah. The religious texts contain the Five Books of Moses--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy--in handwritten calligraphy.

Last weekend, we left the city behind and drove about an hour south to my mother-in-law's kibbutz to see the rolling fields of ripening wheat ready to be harvested just before the Shavuot holiday, exactly like it was in ancient times. Shavuot, starting this year at sundown Tuesday, is a festival with three names: Shavuot, which means "the feast of weeks"; Hag HaKatzir, or "harvest holiday"; and Hag HaBikkurim, meaning "the holiday of first fruits," when the tribes of Israel were obligated to bring their fresh wheat, barley and certain fruits to the Great Temple in Jerusalem.

About 5,000 people joined a symbolic funeral march in New York for six Torah scrolls--Judaism's most sacred objects--that were torched at a synagogue defaced with swastikas and obscenities in an arson attack in which two boys were charged. Among the marchers were Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Mayor Edward I. Koch.

Danny Parzivand, a UCLA biology student, pulled an all-nighter Tuesday, but it had nothing to do with exams. Parzivand, 20, like hundreds of Jews across Los Angeles, stayed up all night studying the Torah to celebrate Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates God's revelation of the sacred book to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. "It's like pushing the restart button for learning. You don't bother sleeping, and suddenly you see the sun coming up," said Parzivand, who spent his night at the Chabad Jewish Community Center in Pacific Palisades.

It is a spiritual treasure of Scripture, poetry, literature and history. It is the foundational sacred text of Judaism and is revered by Christians and Muslims as well. For thousands of years, Jews have interpreted and reinterpreted the Torah--the first five books of the Bible--"as one reads a love letter, eager to squeeze the last drop of meaning from every word," as one rabbi put it.

A propaganda pamphlet written by Saddam Hussein's uncle and published in 1981 summed up the dictator's attitude toward Jews: It's titled "Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies. " Under Hussein, the anti-Semitic Iraqi regime confiscated property and imprisoned and attacked Jews, all but eliminating the remains of what was once a thriving community. Thousands fled, mostly to Israel and the United States, leaving Baghdad's Jewish quarter nearly empty, its masonry crumbling and its Stars of David dimmed by dust and time.

The more than 300-year-old Torah survived the Holocaust, was later rescued from a deserted Jewish temple in Prague and eventually wound up at a Northridge synagogue. On Sunday, Temple Ahavat Shalom will hold a ceremony to mark the beginning of its restoration. Because of its fragile state, and its age ? scrolls this old are a rarity in the United States, scribes say ? the Torah is exhibited during holidays and services but is seldom used for learning. Temple Ahavat will begin restoring the Scriptures so they can be fully utilized.

Danny Parzivand, a UCLA biology student, pulled an all-nighter Tuesday, but it had nothing to do with exams. Parzivand, 20, like hundreds of Jews across Los Angeles, stayed up all night studying the Torah to celebrate Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates God's revelation of the sacred book to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. "It's like pushing the restart button for learning. You don't bother sleeping, and suddenly you see the sun coming up," said Parzivand, who spent his night at the Chabad Jewish Community Center in Pacific Palisades.

Torah Bright's Olympic Games preparation was not exactly ideal: two crashes, two concussions and a trip to the hospital in the span of a few days in January. The snowboarder was off the hill and her main competitors were throwing down dazzling runs in the pipe at the high-profile X Games in Aspen, Colo. What about those dreams of Olympic gold for the Aussie native? Most certainly . . . not so bright. "It wasn't the easiest month, I'll say that," Bright said. "I think I spent more time off snow than I did on. But this year I didn't want to peak at X Games.

Eva, My Dog Maya, 10 Coeur d'Alene Elementary Venice When I first saw her, I was younger. I said, "What are you?" But now, I am older and I say, "When I hug you, you lick my face. You do not bite or growl or ever disappoint me. You are a dog. I love you a lot. And you smile at me and seem to say, 'I love you.' " Sisters Grant, 10 Magic Pen Kids Santa Ana Sisters, I thought glumly. Sisters stink. You know, I was trying to watch TV, when my sister Brielle came along and turned it off. But this time was one time too much.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has thrown out a religious court's decision to award four disputed Torahs to an Orthodox rabbi's widow who claimed that the scrolls had been stolen by her late husband's assistant. The religious court, known in Hebrew as a beis din, ruled in January that the four Torahs belonged to Rita Pauker of North Hollywood. The scrolls had been in the care of her late husband's assistant, Rabbi Samuel Ohana, for more than a decade.

A Los Angeles teenager helped bring joy and solace to a storm-shattered New Orleans Jewish congregation Sunday through a gift of a prized sefer Torah scroll. "Although I haven't met all of you, you've been in my heart and hopes for the last year," Hayley Fields told about 200 congregants gathered for the dedication of the handwritten scroll to Congregation Beth Israel, an Orthodox synagogue.

A century ago in Ukraine, a group of Jews would unfurl a particular Torah during their religious services and read reverently from it. When the Torah was paraded through the sanctuary, they would kiss their fingers and gingerly touch them to the scrolls. Just who those worshipers were is unknown, and whether their synagogue, their village or their children survived the Nazi scourge is open to question.

A rancorous legal fight over the rightful ownership of four Torahs has spilled from religious to civil courts in Los Angeles, with the widow of one Orthodox rabbi accusing another of stealing scrolls lent to him by her deceased husband. Once confined to an obscure Jewish legal system, the case of Pauker vs. Ohana is scheduled to go before a Superior Court judge next month, complete with accusations of legal misconduct, forgery and sheer chutzpah.

If the X Games' women's superpipe competition was a barometer for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, put Australia's Torah Bright atop the podium. And place a large order of painkillers for a powerful U.S. contingent, which has been favored to claim at least two medals at the Vancouver Games but took some lumps Friday. Bright was brilliant and smooth in posting a winning run that included a backside 360, a switch-backside 720, a 540 McTwist, or back-flip, and a Cab 720. Her winning score: 91.33.