Unit 1 · In the Beginning

The Torah is a very long scroll. A scroll is a roll of paper or animal skin. You do not turn pages. You roll it open. The Torah is kept in a special place in a synagogue. A synagogue is where Jewish people pray and learn.

The Torah has five books inside it. Five, like the fingers on one hand. Jewish tradition says all five books belong together. The first book tells the very first stories.

Every week, Jewish people read one part of the Torah. It takes one whole year to read it all. Then they start again from the beginning.

The first book of the Torah has a Hebrew name. It is Bereshit. Bereshit means "In the beginning." That is the very first word of the book. In English, the book is called Genesis.

The Torah is written in Hebrew. Hebrew is read from right to left. The first line says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." That is how the Torah starts.

When people talk about this book, they say "the Torah says." Jewish tradition reads it as a holy book. In school, we learn what the story says and what it means to the people who read it.

The Torah tells the story of the first week. On day one, the story says, God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. God called the light Day. God called the dark Night.

On day two, the story says God made the sky. The sky is like a big roof over the world. On day three, the story says God made dry land and the sea. Then plants grew. Grass, trees and fruit.

After each day, the story says, God saw that it was good. Jewish tradition reads this as a big "yes" to the world.

On day four, the story says, God made two big lights. One big light rules the day. That is the sun. One smaller light rules the night. That is the moon. The story says God made the stars too.

The Torah says these lights are for signs and seasons. They mark days and years. Jewish families use the moon to count their months. A new moon starts a new month.

On day five, the story says, God made the fish in the sea. God made the birds in the sky. The water was full. The air was full. The story says God blessed them.

On day six, the story says God made the animals on the land. Cows, bugs, lions, all of them. Then, last of all, God made people. The Torah says people were made in God’s image. Jewish tradition reads this as: every person matters.

At the end of day six, the story says God looked at everything. And it was very good.

On the seventh day, the story says, God stopped. The work was done. God rested. The Torah says God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. Holy means set apart and special.

Jewish families call the seventh day Shabbat. It starts on Friday night when the sun goes down. It ends on Saturday night. On Shabbat, many Jewish families do not work. They rest, eat and sing together.

Two candles are lit. A cup of grape juice or wine is blessed. There is braided bread called challah. The rest is the point. Jewish tradition says Shabbat is a gift.

On Friday night, many Jewish families light two candles. They say a blessing. A blessing is a short thank-you prayer. The candles say: Shabbat is here.

There is a braided bread called challah. Often there are two loaves. Families say a blessing over the bread and share it. They eat a big meal. They sing songs.

Not every Jewish family keeps Shabbat the same way. Some go to a synagogue. Some take a quiet walk. Some play games. All of them are resting from the week.

The Torah tells of a garden. The garden is called Eden. It has many trees with good fruit. It has a river that runs through it. The story says God put the first people there.

The first man is called Adam. The woman is called Eve. In Hebrew her name is Chava. Their job was to care for the garden. The Torah says God gave them one rule about one tree.

The story says they ate from that tree. Then they had to leave the garden. Jewish tradition tells this story in many ways. In school, we read what the story says.

The Torah tells about a man named Noah. The story says the world was full of bad ways. But Noah was good. The Torah says God told Noah that a big flood was coming.

God told Noah to build an ark. An ark is a very big boat. Noah made it from wood. He covered it inside and out so water could not get in. It had a door on the side and a window on top.

The ark had three floors. It was very long. It took Noah a long time to build. His three sons helped. Their names were Shem, Ham and Japheth.

The story says the animals came to the ark. They came in pairs. A pair is two. One boy and one girl of each kind. Birds, cows, snakes, bugs. Some kinds came in bigger groups of seven pairs.

Noah’s family went in too. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. That is eight people. Then, the story says, God closed the door.

Picture the line of animals. Two giraffes with long necks. Two mice with tiny feet. Two elephants stomping up the ramp. That is how many children picture it.

The Torah says the rain began. It rained for forty days and forty nights. Forty is a lot of days. It is more than a month. Water covered the land. Water covered even the hills.

The ark floated on top of the water. Inside, Noah’s family fed the animals. They waited. The Torah says God remembered Noah. Then a wind blew, and the water started to go down.

The ark came to rest on a mountain. The mountains of Ararat, the Torah says. But the water was still high. Noah had to wait some more.

Noah wanted to know if the land was dry. He sent out a raven first. Then he sent a dove. A dove is a soft gray or white bird. The first time, the dove found no place to land. She came back.

Noah waited seven days. He sent the dove again. This time she came back with an olive leaf in her beak. Now Noah knew. Trees were growing. The water was going down.

Seven more days. Noah sent the dove one more time. She did not come back. Then Noah opened the ark, and the story says God told the family to come out.

When the ground was dry, everyone came out of the ark. The animals ran and flew. The Torah says Noah said thank you to God. Then God made a promise. God said there would never again be a flood over all the earth.

The story says God put a rainbow in the clouds. The rainbow is a sign. It is like a reminder. When people see a rainbow, they can remember the promise.

Jewish tradition has a blessing for seeing a rainbow. It thanks God for remembering the promise. A promise is something you say you will do. And then you do it.

After the flood, the Torah says, everyone spoke one language. A language is the words people use to talk. The people came to a flat land. They said, "Let us build a city and a tower up to the sky."

They made bricks. They built and built. The story says God came down to see the tower. Then God mixed up their words. They could not understand each other. They stopped building.

The people spread out over the earth. The place was called Babel. Jewish tradition reads this story as a lesson. Some rabbis say the people cared more about the tower than about each other.

Noah’s story is in the Torah. Jewish families read it in the synagogue every fall. Christians read the same story in their Bible. Many Christian churches in Chicago tell it to children too.

Muslims tell a story of Noah too. In Arabic, his name is Nuh. The Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, has a chapter named after him. It tells how Nuh warned people and built a boat.

Each tradition reads the story in its own way. But all three tell of a good man, a big boat and a promise. You may hear it in a synagogue, a church or a mosque.