Torah Commentary

Torah Commentary
We are very excited to introduce this new, interactive study-guide to the Torah. Each week, or so, Rabbi Mat Hoffman will provide you with questions to ponder, and ideas to consider, from a variety of sources all relating to a specific section of the Torah. We then encourage you to send your comments, ideas and questions about each week's commentary to Rabbi Mat. Eventually we look forward to providing commentary on the entire Torah.

Introduction and How To Use These Notes

I love Torah. I love reading it. I love teaching it.
I am writing this book (really these notes) to share this love with you, my friends and partners in study. For years I have been thinking about writing something on Judaism. For years I haven’t done so because I never was finished with anything that I really loved as much as I love Torah itself. I have given up trying to finish. Instead, I want to share with you a work in progress. Otherwise, you may never get to read anything I think.
That means that at times this is going to be very rough. There are going to questions that I don’t have the time, knowledge, energy or inclination at this time to answer.
But I am optimistic enough about you and about me to believe that that this modest venture can really lead to dialog between us – a dialog of learning and a dialog of love (love between us, love among people and love between ourselves and our Creator). My study companion, Steve Oster, has referred to the Torah as a “love letter from a really good friend.”
So, please see this work as unfinished. Who knows, maybe you will critique it and I won’t like parts of it anymore. Maybe you will critique it and we will both come to like it better. But do get right back and let me know what you think so that we can think about it together.
Our study of the Torah is a process which reflects creation itself. We start in darkness, hoping for Divine light. Sometimes all of a sudden, we hear the voice of G-d, the answer comes. But like the birth process, there are struggles and often pain.
The process begins with questions. They should trouble us. They should pain us. It should hurt that we do not grasp what G-d wants and we should yearn to find the answers. But no one ever died from a question and the Torah has withstood better questions than mine.
My method (hardly original) is to seek problems in the text. For this effort to make any sense at all to you, please first read the Torah, verse by verse and think of your own questions on each verse. What are the problems in the text? What bothers you morally or grammatically? What seems redundant? What doesn’t fit? Only after you have your own questions (and make the text your own) read these notes.