No human being comes into more frequent and intimate contact with the Torah than its teachers, the supreme instruments of holiness, and we are admonished, in the spirit of the halakhah, not to disdain them after they have passed their prime. In no set of propositions do I find the core value of Judaism more sensitively articulated. Judaism is a religious culture based on books. Written words are buried as if they were human. God, creation, revelation, religion, culture and memory are all imagined by Judaism in terms of language and literature.
Existence begins with the spoken word.
At the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Ark of the Covenant is our Library's Rare Book Room with its grand collection of literary remnants that span the ages. Association with Torah have rendered them forever holy. Shavua has been made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold Hassenfeld.