New Thing 40, New Thing Every Day: Read Parts of the Torah

I grew up in rural Kentucky and knew just one Jewish kid (Alexis, super cute). As a teenager, I had many Jewish friends at a camp I attended in New York, and that gave me my first glimpses of some level of contemporary Jewish culture. Today, my mom is married to a pretty devout Jewish man, but they live far away, so that has not done much to expand my Jewish horizons. In all that time, I had never read even a word of the Torah, except to the extent that it includes parts of the Old Testament, which I have read in its entirety.

Today was my first time reading parts of the Torah, specifically as the Torah, and not the Biblical Old Testament. I read several passages and then a list of quotes. As with pretty much any religion, I see a lot there that can teach me something, and I am glad to have had at least this limited exposure. This weekend, I will go to a Jewish service for the very first time, as my New Thing, and I am pretty excited about it. I do not see myself converting, but there is much to learn from any religion, and I am also looking forward to this opportunity to think about things bigger than myself.

As a little addendum, here is a list of quotes from the Torah that you might like.

1) If I am not for myself who will be for me? Yet, if I am for myself only, what am I? And if not now, when?

2) Say little and do much, and receive all men with a cheerful face.

3) Initiate a greeting to everyone, and it is better to be a tail to a lion than a head of a fox.

4) Don’t try to appease your friend when he is angry, or try to comfort him when the dead lie before him. Do not try to see your friend in the time of his disgrace.

5) We can not explain either the suffering of the righteous or the happiness of the wicked.

6) Be careful of politicians. They are your friends when it is to their advantage, but abandon you in your time of need.

7) The more flesh you have, the more the worms will eat. Let the honor of your friend be as important to you as your own. Don’t get angry easily, and repent one day before you die.

8) The day is short, the job hard, and the workers lazy. You don’t have to finish your tasks on Earth, but you can’t abandon them, either.

9) What is wealth? Being happy with what you have.

10) “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, or let your heart feel joy when they stumble, lest the Lord see and turn His displeasure to you.”

11) Do not look at the flask, but what is inside it. There is a fancy bottle with bad wine in it.

12) According to the effort is the reward.

13) Do not be scornful of anyone, or doubt that anything can happen, for there is no person without his hour, no thing without its place.

14) When you pray, don’t follow a set routine or text, but rather beseech for mercy and pity, as it is written, “For the Lord is gracious merciful, slow to anger, and great in love.”

15) I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, yet they are all the same when a time of disaster falls upon them.

16) Like birds caught in the snare, like fish in a trap, are we when bad luck falls upon us.

17) Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will not fear evil for You are with me.