Hi, and welcome to our new daily virtual Torah study.

I hope you are as excited as I am!

Let’s start with a brief introduction to the Torah. What it is and what it’s not.

… First, the Torah is not a history book.

The history it presents is very incomplete.

Sometimes it will go through hundreds of years in a few verses. Then skip a few hundred years. And then spend a whole chapter, or even a whole portion, on one story.

The Torah is also not a science book.

It doesn’t tell us in detail how G-d created the world. Just that He did.

In fact, it spends only 31 verses on the creation of the whole Universe!

So, if it’s not a history book and not a science book, what is it?

The Torah is a guide for life.

Think of it like the “manual”. G-d’s instructions for living.

The stories in the Torah are meant to teach us lessons for life.

And the same is true about the “Creation Story”.

It tells us things that we need to know. Like how we got here.

And after the brief description of Creation?

The rest of the Book deals with what we should do now that we’re here!

I always say, “any philosophy that can be put into a nutshell?

… Belongs there”!

So we can’t put the Torah into a nutshell, but I hope that, in just one minute a day, we can all learn more about the Torah and more about life!

I welcome your questions and comments, and will do my best to set aside time to respond.

Tomorrow? Creation of the universe.

Have a great day!