Hand-scribed ink on sheepskin parchment attached to wood rollers, the Torah scrolls are testaments to the centuries of Jewish life reaching back to the agricultural setting of our ancestors.

Figure 9. 

The Hebrew of the Torah scroll is written from right to left

Unlike the languages predominant in the resident countries of significant percentages of the Jewish populations through the centuries, the Torah like modern hebrew is written and read from the right to the left. This means that the active reader must develop the skills of their eyes being able to read or track from right to left in addition to their normal left to right movement.

This functionality is stressed for attentive automobile drivers whose eye movements are encouraged to be on the lookout for unwarranted dangers. For non-british travellers in London, there are helpful hints at street crossings to lookout for cars coming from the direction that is not the expected one.

The right to left and left to right duality is exemplified in Ya’akov Agam’s

characteristic art works or agamographs. Such works differ when viewed from the right or left or front on. 

Table 2. 

This ability of dual directionality, and the  practice of eye movement right to left and left to right teaches us to see more about the world around us, and to even consider alternatives and alternate ways of viewing.

With and without ‘nikudot’ or the hebrew vowel markings:

Although there are 22 hebrew consonants and some 18 “nikudot” sound symbols or Hebrew vowel markings, the Torah scroll calligraphy is done without the vowel markings. Thus when preparing to read or chant from the Torah during a service, one has to master both the vowel markings and the prescribed chant sounds. The image below shows the two versions of text, left as the letters appear on the sheepskin parchment, and on the right as it appears with vowels and chant symbols.

Figure 13. 

The preparation teaches the multi-dimensional aspects of “Torah Reading” as a pattern of bringing added meaning and experience to the visual. Torah is written without what other languages refer to as vowels. Readers must supply “vowels when reading or chanting from the Torah scroll. Impact of such participation: seeing beyond the visible!

There is yet another critical skill we learn from the nikudot-less appearance of the Torah’s lettering: while maintaining the consonant-only text over the centuries, generation after generation of our people were free to add their contemporary meanings and understanding to the study of written words.

“The scroll of the Torah is [written] without vowels, in order to enable man to interpret it however he wishes…as the consonnants without the vowels bear several interpretations, and [may be] divided into several sparks. This is the reason why we do not write the vowels of the scroll of the Torah, for the significance of each word is in accordance with its vocalization, but when it is vocalized it has but one single significance; but without vowels man may interpret it [extrapolating from it] several [different] things, many marvelous and sublime.” 

Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections, p86, quoting from R. Bahya be Asher’s Commentary on the Pentateuch

Thus while the consonants of the Torah calligraphy remain constant and unchanged across the centuries of painstaking hand scribed columns, translations and interpretations have been adjusted to times and place. As an example,relating text to our visual media focus Mel Alexenberg provides an insightful translation and interpretation of Genesis 1:1

“In the networks of all networks (the cloud), God created media systems for the formation of spiritual and material realms.” 

“In the network of networks, God created media systems for creating heaven and earth. When the earth was absolutely empty and dark, God created light and separated between light and darkness (1 and 0)” 

The media system of heaven, the spiritual realm, is written in the Torah with Hebrew letters that form words. The media system of earth, the physical realm, is written with electrons and protons that form atoms and molecules. “