World of Belz

Supposing you are in a synagogue and someone says, “they’re taking the Torah out now” just know they are referring to a scroll of parchment on which the Five Books of Moses is written. It is written by hand, with a quill, and the entire time that the person is writing it, his thoughts must be of G-d. Supposing after Belz synagogue you went to visit some friends, and they say, “let’s learn some Torah.” They are not necessarily referring to that scroll of parchment we just talked about above. Torah, in this context, can mean anything from the gamut of Written and Oral Jewish law, history and thought, or any of the further philosophies and insights that later rabbis wrote. If that isn’t weird enough, you might then go to a class to learn, and the lecturer might say, “that’s Toras Moshe m’Sinia” meaning that is a law that goes way back to the giving of…Torah. "So, do we now know what Torah means? Not really. It seems it can mean so many different...