The Torah isn’t just a sacred text — it’s a living, breathing work of art. Every mark, every space, even the parchment itself tells a story of divine inspiration and human devotion.
A Torah scroll is written entirely by hand — no printing, no shortcuts — on parchment made from a kosher animal, using natural ink and a feather quill.
Each sheet, called a yeri’ah, is sewn to the next with animal sinew — natural thread — using a needle made of bone or wood.
Never metal. Why? Because metal makes weapons, and the Torah is about peace, not war.
Even in the way it’s built, the Torah teaches gentleness and care.
Every single letter has to be perfect. If one mark is missing or out of place, the whole scroll is pasul — unfit for use.
The scribe counts every word and every letter — it’s sacred architecture, built with patience, precision, and love.
And even the lines themselves are works of art.
Every column of the Torah is perfectly aligned — straight on both the right and the left — what’s called double justification.
To make that happen, the scribe sometimes lengthens or tightens letters so that every line ends in harmony, becoming a prayer for balance and order in a chaotic world.
And here’s a wonderful tidbit:
The Torah begins with the letter bet (ב) and ends with lamed (ל).
Put them together and you get lev (לב) — “heart.”
So the sages said, “The Torah begins and ends with a heart.”
In Exodus 15, when the Israelites cross the Sea of Reeds, the text suddenly breaks into a brick pattern — like poetry shaped into visual waves.
The story looks like the sea — the writing itself becomes part of the miracle.
Near the very end of the Torah, in Deuteronomy 32, Moses’s final song — Ha’azinu — is written in two narrow columns, almost like two voices singing back and forth.
It’s a visual echo — heaven and earth, God and Israel, calling and responding.
And even the spaces matter. Between one book and the next, the scribe leaves a little gap — a parashah petuchah, an “open space.”
That pause is sacred too. The Torah reminds us that sometimes the silence between words holds the deepest meaning.
When unrolled the Torah is about 120 feet from end to end – and if you find its exact center, you’d land on a single letter: the vav (ו) in the word gachon — “belly” — in Leviticus 11:42.
That vav, meaning “and,” connects things — heaven and earth, God and us, human to human and word to word.
It’s no accident that connection itself sits at the Torah’s center.
If you look at the upper left-hand side of the slide, you will see that this center vav is a little larger to mark the spot — a quiet reminder that the heart of Torah is relationship.
In the middle of the slide, you’ll see the very first letter of the Torah — bet — written slightly larger than the letters around it.
It’s closed on three sides and open only forward — a hint that we’re meant to face the future.
That bet begins the word B’reishit — “in the beginning” — and you’ll notice a small decoration on top of it, a crown called a tag. Many letters in the Torah wear these tagin — tiny strokes that look like crowns. The Talmud says Moses once asked God why they were there, and God replied, “One day Rabbi Akiva will interpret every point and crown.” Others say, more superstitiously, that the tagin are like little daggers to ward off evil spirits.
On the lower right-hand side of the slide is the word Vayikrah, the first word of the book of Leviticus. Tradition says Moses wanted the first word to be vayikar “God happened upon him,” as if by chance, but God insisted the first word to be Vayikra, “God called (to him)”, so they compromised with a small alef – the difference in the spelling of the 2 words — showing Moses humility in God’s holiness.
On the bottom left of the slide, you’ll notice a short paragraph framed by two backward-facing letters nun — in Hebrew, nun hafuchot, literally “flipped nuns.” These marks don’t function as letters but as symbols, like parentheses or bookends, setting this passage apart from the rest of the text.
The rabbis of the Talmud and later commentators taught that this section, from Numbers (10:35), is traditionally recited whenever the Torah is removed from the ark:
Vay’hi binsoa ha’aron… “When the Ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O Lord! May Your enemies be scattered, and may Your foes flee before You!”
This section has been described as a “Torah within the Torah,” dividing the Book of Numbers into three parts — leading some to call the Torah not five books, but seven.
Finally, on the upper right corner, you will notice dots above the letters. These sometimes appear over a word — as in the phrase “Esau vayishakeihu Ya’akov” (וַיִּשָּׁקֵהוּ — “Esau kissed Jacob”)
— and these dots are the scribes’ way of inviting us to pause and wonder. What was really in Esau’s heart? Was it genuine affection, or lingering resentment beneath the surface? These tiny marks turn the text into a question, reminding us that Torah doesn’t just tell stories — it asks us to look between the lines.
As you can see, every mark, every curve, every pause — it all matters. Even the flourishes hold mystery.
The priestly blessing — Y’varech’cha Adonai v’yishm’recha… — looks like a poem on the scroll.
It’s written in three lines:
- Three words — a simple blessing.
- Five words — the blessing deepens.
- Seven words — the blessing expands to peace.
Some ancient scrolls center the lines like a staircase — blessing flowing down from God through the Kohanim to the people.
It’s not just read — it’s shaped like blessing itself.
In the Sh’ma, two letters are written large — the ayin in Shema and the dalet in Echad. Together they spell eid — “witness.”
Because we’re not just readers of the Torah — we’re witnesses to it. We keep it alive by listening and living its words.
Hebrew letters also have numbers — aleph is 1, bet is 2, and so on.
So when two words share a number, we look for meaning.
Ahavah — love — and Echad — one — both equal 13. Put them together, and you get 26 — the value of God’s name.
Love and oneness — divine math.
And whether or not you believe in “Bible codes,” the idea reflects something true: the Torah is infinite. There’s always another layer waiting to be discovered.
And that’s exactly what Torah study is all about.
There isn’t one “right” way to learn — some of us love the stories, others the history, the language, the mysticism, or the ethical challenges.
The tradition calls it PaRDeS — four levels of understanding:
P’shat – the simple meaning
Remez – the hints
Drash – the lessons
Sod – the secret, the mystery.
However you see it — divine, inspired, historical, legendary, mythical or any combination therein — the Torah is the foundation of Jewish life.
It shapes how we think, how we act, how we care for one another.
So come join us — this Tuesday, 10 AM to 12 PM — to explore, question, and discover.
No experience needed — just curiosity and an open heart.