Three Days Without Torah Are Like Three Days Without...

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Monday, September 7, 2009

When Cantor Felder Levy teaches the section of our B’nai Mitzvah Family Orientation about the Torah service, one of the questions she often asks is about the reading of Torah on Monday and Thursday.

Why is it Monday and Thursday, she asks. Why not Monday and Tuesday or Sunday and Friday? One of the answers given is that Monday and Thursday were market days in the time of Ezra the Scribe and those who returned from Babylonian Exile. On those days the farmers from the surrounding areas would come in to the city to sell their produce. By reading the Torah on these days you brought the study of Torah before the entire people.

The custom of reading the Torah publically is an old one. We have written record of it from as early as the third century BCE. The Greek translation of the Torah, the Septuagint, is believed to have been created specifically for the purpose of public readings. Many scholars believe that the synagogue first originated not as a place for prayer but as a place for the Torah to be read, with the Torah first being read aloud on festivals, then on the Sabbaths before important festivals, and finally weekly. The Talmud explains that the last reading to be added was that of Shabbat afternoon. This reading was instituted, according to tradition, because Ezra saw all the men sitting around on the street corners, hanging out on Shabbat afternoon and he wanted to give them something more worthwhile to do, or perhaps because he realized that all week the people were busy with their farms and stores, but this was free time for even the busiest person.

There is a second explanation for the Monday and Thursday schedule of Torah readings that is not dependent on economic factors. This is the explanation that says that the Torah is read on Monday, Thursday and Saturday, so that one would never go more than three days without hearing words of Torah.

The three days here is not chosen at random but comes from a Biblical story.

When the Israelites first left Egypt, they travelled for three days in the desert without finding water to drink. They grumbled and complained to God. It was at that point that God showed Moses a special wood that could be added to the brackish water so that it became drinkable. This tree is thus a tree of life, eytz chayim that is a symbol of the Torah.

The message here is that Torah is like water, in that it is essential to life. Just as a person cannot live without water, a person cannot live without values and purpose, without a sense of the meaning of life which the Torah provides.

Ruth, your parents have provided for you, not only physically, but also spiritually. They have given you many gifts over these past 13 years, and today they pass onto to you a great gift, the gift of Torah. May you cherish and appreciate it throughout your life.