Many contemporary readers of the Torah are frustrated because they have been exposed to a method of interpreting the Bible that takes the texts literally. So if Breishit says that God created woman from the rib of man, or if it says that the serpent spoke, or that this old man lived a few hundred years, those who take it literally interpret the story to be exactly what the words of the text say. And that literal understanding, they apply it to all the words and phrases in the Bible.

Aside from the fact that the Bible text that is commonly used may be one of several versions available and that many who read it use translations, since they do not know the original Hebrew, contemporary readers must understand that reading the Torah literally, can lead to misconceptions.

Even the ancient rabbis, who believed that the Torah was given to us by God, did not take the text literally. They took it seriously, but they always looked for something more than its literal meaning. They realized that the Bible was full of subtle metaphors and allusions, that there were wordplay and other literary devices, that sometimes they spoke satirically, and that their poetry could not be subject to a single interpretation. They also agreed, without fear of being wrong, that scholars could disagree among themselves when dealing with the meaning of some part of the Torah.

When reading the Torah we must keep in mind that what the author said in his time to his contemporaries, within his own intellectual frame of reference, is one thing and what later generations did with the text, those who contributed their commentaries and sermons, is another. This long tradition of understanding the Book as a prism, discovering through its facets a great spectrum of ideas, makes the Torah a unique work.

The Torah, in addition to its original meaning and the interpretations that have arisen over the centuries, also has relevance in our days. For example, the story of the Tower of Babel, which for many years was interpreted as an example of human arrogance, today warns us of the dehumanizing effects of urban life.

What is important about the Torah is, more than in the stories it tells us, in the questions it leaves unanswered. This way of not telling us the ending, of leaving it open, of not giving us a single answer, is the door that remains open for future generations who will hear those same words in a different way and will also answer in a different way. But you can be sure that it will not be in a literal way.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Torah, a Modern Commentary, from a text by W. Gunther Plaut.