Crystal Writes A Blog

The Joy of The Word (Simchat Torah)

The Torah by Flickr User Lawrie Cate, CC License = Attribution Click image to open a new tab/window to view the original image and to access the user’s full photo stream at Flickr.

So, I told members of my writing group that now that I have a WP app on my phone, it is my goal to write something every day. To facilitate that goal, it is my intention to write something about my daily studies in the first five books of the Bible, also known as “The Torah.” So, this will be of sorts a Torah commentary, but instead of being scholarly, it will be more about what it means to me or how it applies to my day. I am beginning today because of the festival day known as “Simchat Torah” which means “Joy of the Word” or “Joy of the Law.”

Simchat Torah comes at the end of the festival of Sukkot, also known at The Feast of Tabernacles. The Lord’s feast (note that Scripture does not say Jewish feast but rather Lord’s feast) is a celebration of remembrance. I have plenty I will say about it in another post, and I have said some already in a note I wrote on Facebook. But to sum up this day, it is the time when those who read the Torah through in a year begin again. It is a man-made time of beginning, but it works for keeping track.

The Complete Jewish Bible is a modern translation that tracks the portions (called Parashahs in Hebrew) and makes it easy to follow along. You can read the entire portion on Shabbat (Sabbath), or you can use the 7 divisions (in Roman numerals in the text) to have one reading for each day of the week. I’m choosing the one reading for each day for the commentary here. A note here: sometimes the Roman numerals will have a letter A or S before them. You can read about it in the beginning of the Bible notes from the author of The Complete Jewish Bible. However, even without knowing their meaning, just remember that if you are following using one of the letters, keep all your future readings using that same letter, or you can get very confused. 🙂

Reading God’s written word is both a gift and a privilege, and I’m grateful for the modern tools that allow me to do it with ease. As I study, I learn more about the personality of My Creator as revealed in the pages of Torah. The “Hebrew 4 Christians” site (in above links for Simchat Torah and Feast of Tabernacles) is another great tool. The link I listed for The Complete Jewish Bible takes you to Amazon (affiliate link) if you want one of your own. And, today’s Scripture in CJB is from the Bible Gateway site; a great tool for every Christian. From there, you can search through any part of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation in CJB and a variety of other Bible versions.

One final note before I get to today’s study is the blessing in the word Torah itself. The Hebrew word for “light” is the word “or” which is right in the middle of the word Torah. Follow with me, and may God Himself light your path with the joy of His word.

Today I read Genesis 1:1-13 about creation. I love that God is a God of beginnings and new beginnings. I love that He could come to a place of nothingness and turn it into something. And I love that each time He brought forth something new, He delighted in it and said it was good. In these verses, we have gone through the first three days of creation, and the earth is now bringing forth seed. And the one thing I noticed above everything else was that whatever God spoke, it happened without question. I’ll close with that and let you think on it.

September 28, 2013 - Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible, Complete Jewish Bible, Genesis, Joy of the Word, Simchat Torah, Sukkot, Torah, Torah commentary, Torah Portions, Torah Reading, Word, Word of God, Word of the Lord