Rabbi Daniel Siegel

The Heart of Writing

The last of our 613 mitsvot is that each of us is to write a Sefer Torah. Thus, the final mitsvah constitutes, through personal scripting, a subscribing to Scripture and its teachings.

In this week’s parashah, we find the distinct mitsvah that an Israelite king, himself, must write a Sefer Torah. Unlike the cultures of its neighbours, wherein the king was considered the source of, and, in some instances, above/beyond the law, the Torah radically proposes that the king is subject to the same law as his people. Moreover, in himself writing the Torah and in practicing it (“To observe all the words of this Torah”), he is modelling a life in fulfilment of the community’s shared religious and civic responsibilities and teachings. 

Today, for various reasons, one would be hard pressed to find a Jew (or a Jewish leader/king) himself “penning” a Sefer Torah. Yet, each of us, throughout our lives, is constantly writing one. As parents and teachers, consciously or not, we are writing and imparting our Torah to our children. We read in Proverbs: “My child, keep my words and internalise my commandments… Keep my commandments and make my teaching (Torah) the apple of your eye… write them upon the tablet of your heart”.

Our Torah becomes transcribed on the hearts of our children and students. Our tradition teaches, however, that each individual, while inheriting a Sefer Torah from his/her parents, must still write his/her own. Personally and consciously writing their own Torah is a challenge for our children and students and a mitsvah which we are called upon to encourage and promote.

Beyond transcribing an inherited tradition steeped in an accepted understanding, today many understand the command to write a Torah from, and upon, our hearts to be a call to “write” a teaching that makes for engaged and meaningful Jewish living for ourselves and our community.

The Torah of our children and students will be that of our parents and teachers if it is one of authenticity and vitality, no matter how it might, otherwise, differ. 

In our ongoing writing of Torah, may we, as we say in our Torah service, “renew our lives as (we have from) ancient times”.