The first time I read Torah, I mean read Torah – no helpful recording or extra assistance – was when I was teaching at a Jewish Day School in Orlando, Florida in the late 90s. One of the teachers there taught my fifth-grade students the Torah trope – the musical notations used to define the melody – using bells. I sat in as she did, learning side by side with my students. This teacher would have each of us ring out the notes of each individual trope mark. We learned the sequencing of each mark and how it connected to others. Each trope was like a computer sequence, determining what parts of the Torah would be emphasized, and which would not. Coming from an age before punctuation and grammar, the trope marks provide the roadmap to better understand the text. As challenged as I am and some of the students were with music, her method worked on the class and on myself. For that, I am forever grateful. She gave me a leg up on many of my rabbinical school classmates, who often had never chanted Torah, even leading up to their ordination. From that time on, I tried to read as often as I possibly could, getting better and better as I went along.
This Shabbat is Simchat Torah, the celebration of completing Deuteronomy and beginning again in Genesis. This is a truly joyous occasion, when we physically move our scrolls from the end back to the beginning. Over the past few months Cantor Frank has been working hard with a group of students, helping to read Torah using trope marks. For some of these individuals, this will be the first time they’ve ever read from our sacred text. I hope you will join us as we witness a new group becoming official Torah readers. What a blessing they are to our community. It will no doubt be a magical night.
Chag Simchat Torah Sameach,
Rabbi Alex