The Torah is the Jewish people’s mutually agreed upon sacred starting place. Through commentary and encounter, it is the meeting place of the ancestors, of which each of us will inevitably become one.

Some say, why Torah? Why not some other book or books? Or why don’t we become more diverse and annex Native American symbols - the owl, wolf, bear, eagle, etc. We could also use Jungian symbols - the crone, the shadow, etc. In order to maintain our culture and religious forms, the Jewish people draws our sacred imagery primarily from Torah. This is a conscious practice.

The entire Torah gets read through sequentially at services, chapter by chapter during the year. In Judaism, one way that revelation comes is when we use ourselves as a prism for the text. When the Torah of our life intersects with the Torah text itself we become aware of new possibilities about ourselves, others and The Source of Life.

Part of the secret of a Jewish spiritual path is to walk through life with Torah stories in our ears and our retorts and responses to the stories on our lips. To speak of them, as it says in the Torah’s book of Deuteronomy, when we lie down and when we rise up.

There are stories in Torah to which we react with anything from anger to compassion, from distress to joy. We have a whole culture which comes to life once we are familiar with the Torah, its stories, characters, archetypes and practices.

In Torah, when Rebecca falls off her camel upon seeing Isaac, we remember what it is like to fall in love. Other years, we may remember the dangers of falling rather than growing in love. When Abraham and Sarah never speak again after his incident with Isaac on the mountain top, we revisit how terribly certain actions can wound and traumatize families for generations. Other years, we may see Abraham and Isaac’s encounter as acts of mutual faith or male rites of transition which can speak to us.

When Moses calls for the eradication of every member of the Midianite people, we are reminded how racism isn’t limited to other peoples and can be found in ourselves. Other years, we may recognize in ourselves with the extremes to which a leader can go when overly identified with heading a project.

As one becomes familiar with Hebrew the interaction with Torah gets even more stimulating and meaningful. Often in Torah we read of God calling each ancestor by name, twice - "Abraham, Abraham..." and the ancestor in the text responds saying: "Hineini" - "Here I am."

There is a sacred synergy that happens once Torah becomes familiar. When you pray using a siddur, (prayerbook) you will begin to find that leaping out at you will be quotes from the Torah text. All your various moments of interpreting those lines of Torah will suddenly be at your service for framing and finding the prayer of your heart.

It is a very powerful and precious moment when a person first feels God’s inquiring presence and is able to respond - "Hineini - Here I am." It might happen to you when faced with an opportunity to listen to a terrified crime victim, in a village in Africa or soup kitchen in New Jersey where you are dispensing food; in a city park listening to a lonely person sitting beside you speak of their day; in a planetarium beholding the birth of a galaxy; and in synagogue when being called up as a witness to the Torah reading for an aliyah.

You can enter into the sacred dialogue of the generations. Write down your questions for the text, take note of your experience with it. What do you notice is missing? When the characters don’t get to speak, discover yourself as you speak for them. This is called making midrash. Your interpretations are holy too.

It is customary to place a kiss on the Torah scroll as it passes by during services. I tell my bar/bat mitzvah students to harvest the kisses left for them by the generations and to replace them by planting kisses of their own, each time the Torah comes by....that future generations might sense their presence, their loving and listening and contributing to the meeting place of the generations.