Rosh Hashana Torah Vort 5783

And Rabbi Ḥanina bar Idi said: Why are matters of Torah likened to water, as it is written: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come for water” (Isaiah 55:1)? This verse comes to tell you: Just as water leaves a high place and flows to a low place, so too, Torah matters are retained only by one whose spirit is lowly, i.e., a humble person.

-Taanit 7a, Talmud Bavli

As we begin the Torah service, I’d like to share some thoughts on Torah. What’s up with the Torah? Why do we read these same stories over and over again? Why is it relevant, and what does it have to do with earth-based Judaism - with getting out of our heads and into our bodies, into connection with the living world around us?

I feel a lot of joy in getting to share this with you, because I have come to deeply love the Torah. But that wasn’t always true! I remember returning to the beit midrash for immersive Torah study after years away from it, and deeply struggling to reconcile the ideal of ‘ahavat Torah’ with some content that I found incredibly disturbing and painful. But in my determination to understand the real spiritual significance of this book to our tradition, I ultimately came to appreciate that Torah is essentially a mirror for our lives.

Like our lives, Torah contains it all: beauty, wisdom, humor, mystery; ugliness, pain, oppression, violence; a whole lot of the mundane; and everything in between.

And what do we do with it? We study it. We learn from it. We speak of it to one another, seeking to draw out its wisdom. We sing it, chant it, dance with it. We treat it with the utmost respect and care. We both inscribe it and read from it with impeccable attention to detail. Everything about it is an art. 

And from these ways that we relate to Torah, we can learn how we might relate to the stories of our lives.

Because our very lives are Torah. We are the living Torah. This earth is living Torah - and this Torah is of the earth. Our tradition likens Torah to each of the elements: 

The Talmud teaches that the wisdom of Torah is like water, nourishing the soul and quenching our spiritual thirst. 

It also teaches that Torah is fire - “black fire written on white fire.” Like fire, Torah can transform and illuminate us and our world. Black fire refers to the words, the content, while the white fire is that which is beyond concept, the hidden meaning between and behind the words, or the unchanging space of awareness within which our experiences arise.

And our tradition teaches that Torah is earth. Torah is a ’tree of life,’ an ‘etz chayim.’ Like a tree, our story as humanity, and as Jews, has roots deeper than we can see. And these roots are our resilience, nourishing and anchoring us through our ever-changing cycles, so that we can bloom, blossom, and bear fresh fruit - and let go, release, and transform - in connection with the greater ecosystem of all our relations. 

And so, this high holiday season, I invite you to see the Torah, the wisdom - that which nourishes and clarifies, like water - that which transforms and illuminates, like fire - and that which roots and anchors, stands strong and resilient, and bears fruit, like a tree - in the living world and in the stories of your own life.

And I invite you to see yourself, and your story, in this story. Because there may be some wisdom or a blessing here to guide you on your way.