All Jewish learning stems from the Torah. Think of it in many ways: as the record of earliest history; as the source of values and standards of behavior; as a sacred text outlining Jewish symbols, holidays, mitzvot, and prayers; and as a common idea at the core of Jewish identity and peoplehood.
However you plan to teach Torah to your students, the new resource How It’s Made: Torah Scroll, from Apples & Honey Press, can enhance the learning of the holiest object in Judaism. Explore how a Torah scroll comes into being as a physical object through more than 100 full-color photographs and interviews that give a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at scribes, artists, and craftspeople in their workshops in Israel and the United States.
Find out how parchment is scraped and stretched, how tree sap becomes ink, how a computer program checks for mistakes, and how much time and care people put into making Torah scrolls by hand.
Here are a few ideas for how to use this vibrant new resource as a hands-on complement to other Torah learning:
· Before the rabbi unrolls a Torah scroll to show children before Simchat Torah, students can make a clay yad or pointer (directions on page 27) and then practice reading from a book while pointing with their yad.
· As part of learning about Yom Kippur, students can see how adults make and fix mistakes (even those writing a Torah scroll), and then tell or write about a time they made a mistake and how they fixed it.
· If students are working in small groups, each group can have its own book as a guide for how to plan out their projects, such as making their own feather quill pen (page 15) or writing with berry ink they made themselves (page 21).
How It’s Made: Torah Scroll, set for release in August, is the first in a series of photographic books. It will be followed by How It’s Made: Matzah, coming in January.
You can order How It's Made: Torah Scroll with your school order beginning in August, or you can pre-order on Amazon now.
