The Symbolic Representation of the Sefer Torah - Maqom

accepted by the majority of believing Jews. Deuteronomy refers to the Sefer Torah several times, inDeuteronomy 17:18, 28:61, 29:20, and 30:10. 7While the different Biblical Rabbinic commentariesdisagree as to whether the Sefer Torah described here is the five books of Moses or smaller sections, Iwould suggest that within the collective memory of the Jew, it is seen no different than the Sefer Torah wehave today. The sanctity of the Torah is primarily displayed and established by two passages.Deuteronomy 31:9 states “Moses wrote the Torah, and delivered it to the priests the sons of Levi, who borethe Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.” Moses is instructed by the Lord towrite the Torah. 8The tradition is that every word that Moses wrote was the word of the Lord.Consequently, the Torah is the word of G-d and the “Book” is a manifestation of His holiness andtherefore holy in itself; it was the intimate link with G-d. According to the Rabbinical tradition, the Torahexisted prior to the revelation at Sinai. The Midrash Raba (Genesis 1:1) informs us that when G-d createdthe world, He consulted the Torah, which served as His blueprint. Furthermore, G-d spends the first hoursof every day studying Torah. Only after that does He administer justice, and feed the world. (TB AvodaZara 3b).The TorahThis concept is taken one step further in Deuteronomy 31:24-26, which states “When Moses hadfinished writing the words of this Torah in a book (Sefer) to the very end, Moses commanded the Leviteswho carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord. ‘Take this Sefer Torah and put it by the side of the ark ofthe covenant of the Lord your G-d that it may be there for a witness against you.' ” The Biblical Rabbiniccommentaries discuss the actual place the Sefer Torah was placed on the side of or in the ark, but what is7 Examples of additional sources that refer to the Sefer Torah throughout the Bible are: Joshua 1:8, 8:31, 8:34, 23:61, Kings 222:8,3, 10,11, 14:6, 23:2, 21, Nehemiah 8:1,2,3, 8:18, 9:3, 13:1. Of special interest to this essay is Nehemiah 9:3, which reads“And they stood up in their place, and read in the Sefer Torah of the Lord their G-d….” Standing for the Torah will be discussedbelow.8 See TB Sanhedrin 99a, which writes that Moses was an intermediary and that G-d dictated every word and every dot of theTorah to him.3