(Rabbi Hara Person served as managing editor for The Torah: A Women's Commentary)

A year ago at this time, we were eagerly awaiting the finished copies of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.  The first books were being bound at the printer near Albany, and those of us who had worked on it were following every step of the printing process with bated breath.  On December 7th, a finished book arrived Fedex overnight at my house.  The next morning was my son’s bar mitzvah, and I presented it to him on the bima, telling him that he was the first bar or bat mitzvah ever to receive the book, but that we hoped there would be many more after him.

Two days later, I boarded a plane and flew to San Diego, where boxes of the book arrived in time to unpack, stack up, and debut for the WRJ assembly and Union for Reform Judaism biennial.  Even a year later, it still feels exhilarating to have been part of history in this way.  I have worked on many books in my career, and I have loved them all the way a mother loves all her children.  But no book has ever felt groundbreaking in quite the same way.  For though there have been some wonderful books of Torah commentary written by individual Jewish women in the last fifty years, there has never been a book of Torah commentary by Jewish women that is this comprehensive and inclusive.  There has never before been a Torah commentary that includes the work of the most renowned Jewish women scholars, clergy, and thinkers from around the world, as well as the poetry of Jewish women, and that weaves it all together, along with the actual Torah text, into a cohesive and creative whole. 

In the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of traveling to different congregations to speak about The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.  In each congregation, the excitement is palpable.  Women and men of all ages are using the book to open new doorways into Torah, whether during services, in Torah study classes, or for individual study.  They are finding inspiration and exciting new ideas within its pages, as well as new uses for the material.  In B’nai Sholom Congregation, in Huntington, West Virginia, we did a congregational Havdalah program using poetry about Shabbat and prayer from the book.  At Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, we invited five of the poets to speak about the connection between their poems and the Torah text. 

The study guides available on the WRJ website offer another way in to Torah study.  Each study guide presents three or four different themes to choose from, with a sequence of readings and questions for each theme.  These sessions can be led by anyone in the congregation who is willing to put in a small amount of time for preparation.  The free study guides can be found here.

Knowing how many different people are using The Torah: A Women’s Commentary is gratifying to all of us who worked on it.  And the truth is that no matter how many times I reviewed every page during production, each time I open it up I still find something new and moving as well.