THE HOLY SCRIPTURE OF THE JEWISH TRADITION: THE SEFER TORAH
Authors: ALTUNCU Abdullah 
Published: June 2022

The Sefer Torah is the Torah scroll on which the books of Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar and Devarim, believed to have been revealed to the Prophet Moses by God, are written on leather parchments.The characteristics of the sofers who write the scripture according to the Jewish tradition, the materials to be used in writing, the writing of the scripture, the preservation and use of the completed parchment, the elimination of the Sefer Torah, which has become unusable, are the topics covered in almost all legal sources closely related to relgious law. Therefore, Jewish religious law reveals the structural features that show how the Sefer Torah has been transmitted from the time it was first written until today. According to this, the sacred scripture of Judaism is not a "book" called humash, but a Torah scroll consisting of leather parchments called Sefer Torah. During the historical process, Jews used the humash for research and investigation, and they placed the Sefer Torah at the center of worship and religious practices. In addition, it is seen that the most sacred object of Judaism is the Sefer Torah. This characteristic of Judaism, which has been preserved since ancient times, has enabled Judaismto gain a different direction from other religions that have holy books. In addition, tJews were called 'Am ha-Sefer', that is, "the people of the book" because of their relationship with the Sefer Torah. The Tanakh's teachings have been interpreted as commanding that every Jew compose a Sefer Torah, which is declared as a command that must be fulfilled within 613 mitzvot. The breaking periods of Jewish History, such as the destruction of the Temple, the disappearance of the sacrificial worship, and the exiles that occurred, caused the central position of the Sefer Torah to increase even more. Due to the destruction of the temple, many worships such as the sacrifice performed in the temple have become impossible. This has led to the emergence of a new understanding of religion in which the text and religious education shaped through the text are at the forefront. The Jews, who were dispersed to different parts of the world, have tried to establish the ties they have with God only via the Sefer Torah, due to the loss of the Temple and the promised land. Therefore, the Sefer Torah has become a sacred object, which is preserved by increasing its value compared to many other elements in Judaism and has a function in different aspects of religious life. In addition, this holiness of Sefer Torah have enabled many other objects such as Aron ha-Kodesh, Teva, etz hayim, keter, rimonim, yad and Sefer Torah sheath to gain holiness. Another important point about Sefer Torah is the symbolic meaning it has had since ancient times. In all religions, which have an abstract understanding of one God, where depictions are rejected, sacred scriptures have been the only indication of God's act of creation and the resulting right to legislate and sovereignty . In Judaism,as well, the Sefer Torah has become a metaphor that connects the Israelites with the sacred, and gives identity to Jews throughout the entire historical process. It has also become a symbolic metaphor referring to the first moment when God descended into Mount Sinai in a fog and the boundaries between the divine realm and the earth disappeared.
Thus, the Sefer Torah became the common link between God, the Israelites, and the law. So much so that in The Zohar, all the letters of the Torah are associated with all the individuals of the Israelites, and the Sefer Torah and the Jewish nation are shown as the same, complementary and identical elements. The theological ground that allowed all this symbolic expression carried by the parchments enabled the Sefer Torah to become an object used for certain purposes not only by those who adopted the traditional Jewish understanding, but also by the communities that left the tradition in modern Jewish thought. This article provides information about the Sefer Torah as the sacred scripture of Judaism , and then it seeks to reveal how the Torah scrolls and related issues are handled in Jewish religious law, which is called halakha. Then, the symbolic meanings of the Sefer Torah arising from being a "sacred" scripture, emerging in the historical process are discussed. The article also aims to show the structural meaning of Sefer Torah, which is accepted as the most important and most sacred text by all Jewish communities, through rabbinic interpretations and religious law rules. Another aim of the study is to show the symbolic meaning of Sefer Torah through mystical interpretations and religious practices and rituals. The data is obtained through the method ofdocumentation and transcribed using the descriptive method.