FaCt A DaY with a space between it and the word following. By tradition this heh, vowelized to hah, is a sepa- rate word. 7. If you spend Shabbat in Spain one week, then hop on over to Russia the next, you might get a lit- tle confused: Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews do not follow the same order of reciting haftorot, the supplemental readings to the Torah. reading of the Torah begins on the Shabbat after Sukkot; it ends on Simchat Torah. 17. The letter yod in the word teshi ("you ignored") in Parshat Haazinu (Deuteronomy 32:8) is written smaller than any other yod in the Torah. 18. The last word in the Torah is Yisrael. A Torah scroll may be written only on the parchment of a kosher animal. 8. A number of names exist fof tne place where the Jews received the Torah. These include "Mount Sinai" (Exo- dus 19H 1, 18, 20), for exam- ple, "the mountain of God" (including Exodus 4:27, 1 8:5), "Mount Horeb" (Exodus 33:6), "the mountain" (Exodus 19:2), your computer to find codes in the Torah 12. in the sefer Torah (Torah scroll), the very first letter of the Torah, the bet in Beresheet, traditionally is writ- ten large and wide. This is known as the bet rabbati. "the mountain of Horeb" (Exodus 17:6) and "the mountain of God in Horeb" (including Exodus 17:6, Deuteronomy 1:6). 9. Though congregations of all denominations today make use of a Torah reader, this wasn't always the case. During the time of the Temple, anyone who knew how to read Torah was asked to do so. Yet according to the Mishnah (commen- taries on the Torah), there came a time when certain farmers would announce, as they left harvest gifts at the Temple, that they simply did not know enough to read. Conse- quently, the rabbis came up with the idea of a designated Torah reader. 10. The Torah has been translated into more than 1,000 languages. 11. Who could have imagined this marriage between religion and technology? Among the latest software kits: the Bible Codes Pro- gram, which allows you to use 5/28 1999 25. The yearly cycle of the public 19. Are there five or six books of the Torah? Verses 35 and 36 in Parshat Behaalotcha (Numbersl 0) are separated from the rest of the Torah text by two inverted nuns (pro- nounced: noons), written before and after the verses. Because these verses appear to stand alone, the Talmud regards them as a separate book of the Torah. 13. The midpoint of the Torah text is the letter vav in -the word gachon ("belly"), Parshat Shemini (Leviticus 11:42). Traditionally, this vav is written in an elongated form in the sefer Torah. 14. The Song of the Sea in Parshat B'shalach (Exodus 15H-19) is written in staggered lines. Each line contains long spaces, and the lines above and below the spaces have words. The Talmud specifies that this passage in the Torah scroll should resemble the staggered lines of brick work. 15. Probably the best known line in the Torah is Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad (Deuteron- omy 6:4). By tradition, in the Torah scroll this phrase is written out as one full line of text. The letter ayin of the word Shema, and the letter dalet of the word echad, are writ- ten larger than the other letters. 16. In Parshat Haazinu, (Deuterono - my 32:6), the letter heh is written larger than the other letters, and 26. The synagogue Torah reading is divided into various aliyot (ascents), where members of the congregation are called up to make a blessing before each portion is read. On Shabbat morning, there are seven aliyot; six on Yom Kippur; five on other major holidays; four on the intermediate days of the holi- days and on Rosh Chodesh (the new moon), and three on Shabbat afternoon. 27. The Torah cannot be read cere- 20. The Torah is divided into 54 weekly portions called parshyot, although the public reading of the Torah is completed within one year. 21. There are 10 words in the Torah that traditionally are written with dots over them and sometimes also under them. 22. By Talmudic tradition, the Torah in Parshat Noach (Genesisl 0: 1 -32) lists 70 primary nations of the world descended from the three sons of Noah, from which stem all subse- quent nations. 23. The song of Moshe in Parshat Haazinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-43) is written with a long space in the middle of each line, giving the appearance of a double column. 24. Seven of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the Torah are written with small flourishes, resem- bling crowns, in their upper left-hand corners. The crowns, called tagin, are attached to the letters shin, ayin, tet, nun, zayin, gimel and tsadi. monially in public unless there is a minyan (a quorum of 10 adults) pre- sent. 28. In the synagogue reading of the Torah, the open scroll is lifted and shown to the congregation in a ritual called hagba. In Sephardic congregations, it is done before the reading; among Ashkenazim, it is done afterward. 29. A Torah scroll may be written on parchment only, made from a kosher animal. 30. Although we are used to seeing the vowel points in printed editions of the Torah, a Torah scroll must be written with the consonants only. The addition of vowel signs or can- tillation symbols renders a sefer Torah unfit for use. 31. By tradition, the Torah scroll is written in columns, and each col- umn starts with a word whose first letter begins with vay. (Answer to Question 3.) According to tradition, Job was not a real person. Instead, Moses was said to have created the figure to teach the idea of human suffering and God's justice.