Unit 4 · What the Tanakh Is

The Hebrew Bible has a short name: Tanakh. The name is a bit like a code. It is made from three first letters: T, N and K. Each letter stands for one part of the book. Put the three parts together and you have the whole Tanakh.

The T is for Torah. Torah means "teaching." The N is for Nevi'im. That word means "prophets." A prophet is a person who brings a message from God, as the tradition tells it. The K is for Ketuvim. That word means "writings." It holds songs, sayings and stories.

Jewish tradition puts the three parts in this order: Torah first, then Nevi’im, then Ketuvim. The Torah comes first because Jewish tradition treats it as the heart of the whole book. In this course we will read all three parts, in that order.

Jewish tradition counts twenty-four books in the Tanakh. The Torah has five books. Nevi’im has eight. Ketuvim has eleven. Five plus eight plus eleven makes twenty-four. Some of these books are long. Some are only a page or two.

The five books of the Torah are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Those are the English names. Each book also has a Hebrew name. You will learn the Hebrew names in the next chapter. Together the five books tell one long story.

Nevi’im holds books named for prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah. It also holds history books, like Joshua and Kings. Ketuvim holds Psalms, which are songs, and Proverbs, which are wise sayings. It also holds short books like Ruth and Esther. The very last book is Chronicles.

The three parts of the Tanakh hold different kinds of writing. The Torah is mostly story and law. It begins with the creation of the world. It ends with the death of Moses, just before the people enter the land. Jewish tradition calls the whole thing "the teaching."

Nevi'im, the prophets, comes in two halves. The first half is history. It tells how the people entered the land, chose kings and, later, lost the land. The second half holds the words of prophets. A prophet speaks a message that, as the tradition tells it, comes from God. The message is often hard to hear.

Ketuvim, the writings, is the most mixed part. It has songs, called Psalms. It has wise sayings, called Proverbs. It has a poem about love and a poem about grief. It has stories about a queen and about a man in a lions’ den. It ends with a history that looks back over everything.

Almost all of the Tanakh was written in Hebrew. Hebrew is an old language. It is still spoken today in Israel. Many Jewish children in Chicago learn some Hebrew so they can read the Tanakh and the prayers. Hebrew has its own alphabet with twenty-two letters.

A few parts of the Tanakh are in Aramaic. Aramaic is a cousin of Hebrew. Long ago, many people in the Middle East spoke it. Some chapters in the book of Daniel are in Aramaic. So are some parts of the book of Ezra. Scholars can tell the two languages apart.

Because the Tanakh is in Hebrew, people who read English use a translation. A translation says the same thing in a new language. This course uses a translation made in 1917. Translators try hard to be faithful. But every translation makes some choices, and no translation is the Hebrew itself.

English goes from left to right across the page. Hebrew goes the other way. You start at the right edge and read toward the left. A Hebrew book opens from what looks like the back to an English reader. When a Torah scroll is unrolled, the reading moves from the right roller to the left one.

Here is something surprising. A Torah scroll is written with almost no vowels. Vowels are the sounds like a, e, i, o and u. In Hebrew, most vowels are small dots and dashes placed under or above the letters. A scroll leaves them out. The reader has to know the words already.

Children’s Hebrew books do have the vowel dots. So do most printed Hebrew Bibles. Those dots were added by careful scholars long after the Tanakh was written. Reading from a scroll without them takes a lot of practice. That is why the reader in a synagogue studies the passage all week before Saturday.

A Torah scroll is not printed by a machine. It is written by hand. The person who writes it is called a scribe. In Hebrew, a scribe is a sofer. A sofer trains for years. The work is slow and careful. One scroll can take a year or more to finish.

The scroll is made of parchment. Parchment is animal skin that has been cleaned and stretched until it is smooth. The sofer writes with a quill, which is a feather cut to a point, and with special black ink. Sheets of parchment are sewn together and attached to two wooden rollers.

Jewish tradition says every letter must be correct. If a sofer makes a mistake, it must be fixed before the scroll can be used. A scroll with a broken letter is set aside until it is repaired. This care is one reason the words of the Tanakh have stayed so steady across hundreds of years.

In a synagogue, the Torah scrolls live in a special cabinet at the front of the room. It is called the ark. In Hebrew it is the aron kodesh, the holy cabinet. A curtain or a door covers it. When the ark is opened, people in many synagogues stand up.

Each scroll is dressed. It wears a cloth cover, and sometimes a silver crown or a breastplate. When it is time to read, the scroll is carried to a table and undressed. Then it is unrolled to the right place. The reader does not touch the letters with a finger. Fingers can smudge the ink.

Instead, the reader uses a yad. Yad means "hand" in Hebrew. A yad is a thin pointer, often made of silver, with a tiny hand at the tip. The reader moves the yad along the line while chanting. After the reading, the scroll is rolled up, dressed again and carried back to the ark.

The Torah is long. To read it all, Jewish communities split it into pieces. Each piece is called a parashah. That word means "portion" or "section." One parashah is read aloud each week, on Shabbat morning. The plural is parashot.

Most years there are fifty-four portions on the list. Some years have fewer weeks, so two short portions are read together. Each parashah has a name. The name comes from one of its first words. The first parashah is called Bereshit, "In the beginning," because Genesis starts with that word.

Each week many Jewish families and schools talk about that week’s parashah. A child might hear the story of Noah one week and the story of Abraham a few weeks later. Because the cycle is the same each year, the stories come around again and again. Children grow up with them.

The yearly cycle ends and begins on one holiday. It is called Simchat Torah. The name means "rejoicing in the Torah." It comes in the fall, right after the holiday of Sukkot. On that day the last portion of Deuteronomy is read aloud. Then, without a pause, the first portion of Genesis is read.

Simchat Torah is a joyful day. In many synagogues, people take all the scrolls out of the ark. They carry them around the room while singing. They dance with them. Children often walk in the parade holding flags. Everyone celebrates that a whole year of reading is done.

Why start again right away? Jewish tradition teaches that the study of Torah never ends. The last word of Deuteronomy leads back to the first word of Genesis. A person who has read the Torah many times can still find something new. So the scroll is rolled all the way back, and the reading begins again.

The books of the Tanakh are also holy books for Christians. Christians call them the Old Testament. The words inside are the same books. But the order is different, and the count is different. Christians usually list thirty-nine books, because they split some books that Jewish tradition counts as one. Samuel, for example, becomes First Samuel and Second Samuel.

The order matters. The Tanakh ends with Chronicles, which looks back and ends with a call to return home to Jerusalem. The Christian Old Testament ends with the prophet Malachi. Each tradition arranges the books in the way that fits how it reads them. This course keeps the Tanakh’s order: Torah, Nevi’im, Ketuvim.

This course reads an English translation called the JPS 1917. JPS stands for the Jewish Publication Society. In 1917 a group of Jewish scholars in Philadelphia finished it. It was the first time a group of American Jewish scholars worked together to translate the whole Tanakh into English. Its English sounds old, with words like "thou" and "unto," but it is careful and free for anyone to use.

In English the five books of the Torah are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Those names came through Greek and Latin. They describe what is in each book. Genesis means "beginning." Exodus means "going out." Numbers is named for the counting of the people.

In Hebrew each book is named for one of its first words. Genesis is Bereshit, "In the beginning." Exodus is Shemot, "Names," because it opens with a list of names. Leviticus is Vayikra, "And he called." Numbers is Bamidbar, "In the wilderness." Deuteronomy is Devarim, "Words."

Jewish tradition reads the five books as one long story. It begins with the world being made. It ends with Moses looking at the land from a mountain. In this chapter we walk through the story book by book. Keep the map from the opening story in your mind as you go.

Genesis, or Bereshit, opens with the world being made in six days and a rest on the seventh. Then come the first people in a garden, the first brothers, and Noah’s flood. After the flood comes a tower and many languages. These early stories are about the whole world, not one people.

Then the story narrows to one family. The Torah says God told a man named Abram to leave his home and go to a land he did not know. He and his wife Sarai went. Later their names became Abraham and Sarah. The Torah says God made a covenant with Abraham, a bond with promises on both sides. Their son was Isaac. Isaac’s son was Jacob, who was also called Israel.

Jacob had twelve sons. One of them, Joseph, was sold by his brothers and taken to Egypt. Years later Joseph became a great leader there. When food ran out in Canaan, his brothers came to Egypt, and Joseph forgave them. The whole family moved to Egypt. That is where Genesis ends, with the family far from home.

Exodus, or Shemot, begins many years after Joseph. The family has grown. Now it is a whole people, the children of Israel. A new Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, is afraid of them. He makes them slaves. They build cities for him. He even orders that their baby boys be thrown into the river.

One mother hides her baby in a basket among the reeds of the river. His big sister, Miriam, watches. Pharaoh’s daughter finds the basket and decides to raise the boy. She names him Moses. He grows up in the palace. But when he sees a slave being beaten, he runs away to the desert.

In the desert, the Torah says, Moses sees a bush that burns but does not burn up. From the bush a voice tells him to go back to Egypt and lead the people out. Moses says he is not a good speaker. His brother Aaron goes with him to help. Together they stand before Pharaoh and say, "Let my people go."

Pharaoh says no. The Torah says ten plagues then come upon Egypt, one after another. The river turns to blood. Frogs fill the land. There are bugs, sick animals, sores, hail, locusts and darkness. The last plague is the worst: the firstborn of Egypt die. Only then does Pharaoh let the people go.

The people leave so fast that their bread has no time to rise. Jewish families remember this every spring on Passover. They eat flat bread called matzah. They tell the story at a special meal called a Seder. The youngest child asks questions, and the family answers with the story of the going out from Egypt.

Pharaoh changes his mind and chases them with chariots. The people are trapped at the edge of the sea. The Torah says Moses lifted his staff, the sea opened, and the people walked through on dry ground. On the other side Miriam took a drum and led the women in a song and dance. The people were free.

Three months after leaving Egypt, the people camp at a mountain called Sinai. The Torah describes thunder, lightning, a thick cloud and the sound of a horn. Moses goes up the mountain. The Torah says God spoke ten sayings to the whole people. Jewish tradition calls them the Ten Sayings; many English readers call them the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Sayings include: there is one God; do not make idols; rest on the seventh day; honor your father and mother; do not murder; do not steal; do not lie about your neighbor. Then, the Torah says, God gave Moses many more laws. Jewish tradition says the whole Torah was given at Sinai. Jewish families remember this day on the holiday of Shavuot.

The second half of Exodus is about building. The people make a tent that can be taken down and carried. It is called the Mishkan, or tabernacle. The Torah gives every detail: the boards, the curtains, the gold lamp, the table. Inside is a chest holding the tablets of the Ten Sayings. The Mishkan travels with the people wherever they go.

Leviticus, or Vayikra, is the middle book of the Torah. It has almost no story. Instead it is full of rules. Many are about offerings, gifts of animals, grain or oil brought to the Mishkan. Other rules are for the priests, the men from Aaron’s family who served there.

Some of the rules are about food, about being clean, and about days of the year. Leviticus describes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On that day the people ask forgiveness for their wrongs. Jewish communities still keep Yom Kippur today as the most solemn day of the year.

One part of Leviticus is called the holiness laws. It says the people should be holy. Then it lists what that means: leave part of your harvest for the poor and the stranger; pay workers on time; do not spread rumors; be fair in court. In the middle of the list is a famous line. The Torah says to love your neighbor as yourself. Jewish tradition treats that line as a key to the whole book.

Numbers, or Bamidbar, gets its English name from a count. At the start of the book the people are counted, tribe by tribe. Its Hebrew name means "In the wilderness," and that is where the whole book happens. The people leave Sinai and head toward the land the Torah says was promised to Abraham.

Moses sends twelve spies ahead to look at the land. They come back with huge grapes. But ten of the spies say the people there are giants and the cities are too strong. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, say the people can go in. The people are afraid and cry all night. The Torah says that because of this, they will wander for forty years.

The book tells of hard times in the desert. The people complain about food and water. There are arguments about who should lead. But there are also surprises. A man named Balaam is hired to curse the people, and his donkey talks to him. Five sisters ask for their father’s land, and the law is changed for them. By the end of the book, a new generation is camped by the Jordan River.

Deuteronomy, or Devarim, is different from the other books. It is mostly speeches. The people are camped by the Jordan River. Moses is old. He knows he will not go into the land with them. So he stands up and speaks to the new generation, who were children or not yet born when they left Egypt.

In his speeches Moses retells the journey. He reminds them of Sinai. He says the Ten Sayings again, with a few small changes in the words. He repeats many laws. That is why the English name is Deuteronomy, which means "second law." He tells them to teach these words to their children and to talk about them at home and on the road.

Moses also tells the people they have a choice. If they keep the covenant, the Torah says, they will have blessings. If they break it, there will be trouble. Near the end, Moses says he has set before them life and death, blessing and curse, and he asks them to choose life. Jewish tradition reads this as a call that is still open to every generation.

The last chapter of the Torah is short. Moses climbs a mountain called Nebo, on the east side of the Jordan River. From the top, the Torah says, he can see the whole land. He sees the hills and the valleys, all the way to the far sea. But he does not go in. The Torah says he died there, at the age of 120.

The people cry for Moses for thirty days. The Torah says no one knows where his grave is. Then it looks back. It says no prophet like Moses has risen again in Israel. Jewish tradition calls him Moshe Rabbenu, "Moses our teacher." The name says what he means to the tradition: not a king, but a teacher.

Before he died, Moses laid his hands on Joshua. Joshua was one of the two hopeful spies. Now he is the new leader. He will take the people across the river. That story is in the book of Joshua, the first book of Nevi’im. The Torah stops at the edge of the land, and the next part of the Tanakh picks up right there.

Step back and look at the whole map. The story starts with the whole world. Then it follows one family from a city called Ur to the land of Canaan. It follows them down to Egypt, where they grow into a people and are made slaves. It follows them out of Egypt, across the sea, to Sinai, and through the wilderness to the Jordan.

What holds the story together? Jewish tradition answers: the covenant. In Genesis, the Torah says God makes a covenant with Abraham and promises him a land and a big family. At Sinai, the Torah says the whole people enter a covenant and take on its laws. In Deuteronomy, Moses asks the new generation to keep it. The promise of the land is always just ahead.

Scholars and Jewish readers both notice something about the ending. The Torah stops before the promise is finished. The people are at the edge, not inside. Some readers say this keeps the story open, so every generation can feel it is still on the journey. That is one reason the reading begins again each year on Simchat Torah.