Torah is instruction. In its narrowest sense it is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—traditionally ascribed to Moses. In a wider sense it is the whole of God’s teaching given to Israel, written and oral.

The scroll of the Torah is the most sacred object in the synagogue. Written by hand on parchment according to exacting rules, it is dressed in fine coverings, processed through the congregation, and read aloud in an annual cycle. The public reading is not merely educational; it is a reenactment of the revelation at Sinai. Every Jew is commanded to study Torah, and the ideal of the scholar who delights in its details remains central.

Rabbinic Judaism holds that the written Torah was accompanied by an oral Torah that elaborates and applies it. That oral tradition was eventually codified in the Mishnah and Talmud. Together they form a continuous conversation that still governs Jewish life in matters of calendar, diet, family, and ethics.

For Jews the Torah is not a relic. It is the living constitution of a people in covenant with God, read and reinterpreted in every generation.