Books For Life - Hei Tevet 5785
Happy end of Chanukah! May the light of this holiday permeate our entire year and dispel all the darkness. In a few days we will celebrate another holiday - the Fifth of Tevet, this Sunday. I will start with some background. How would you define the word “book?” I looked up a few dictionaries, and got some interesting definitions. A common one is something like this: “a set of written, printed, or blank sheets bound together between a front and back cover.” In Judaism, our holy books are much more. The holy Tablets that Moshe brought from heaven were more than just stones containing words. The stones themselves were considered holy because they contained the Ten Commandments. Even after the tablets were broken, the pieces were kept in the Holy Ark along with the second, unbroken tablets. A Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) is our most sacred item. That includes the parchment, not just the content. If G-d forbid a Tor...