When she set out to join the ranks of Torah chanters at her synagogue, Susan Silverman didn’t quite realize what she was getting into.
“If I had known what was involved when my son was going through his bar mitzvah, I would have had much more appreciation for his accomplishments at the time,” she says. “I didn’t know how complex this can be.”
Few people do.
For starters, the Hebrew in a Torah scroll doesn’t have vowels or punctuation. The trope — the cantillation symbols that designate the melody for a word or phrase — is likewise not marked on the scroll and must be studied in advance using a separate text called a tikkun l’korim.
Amid lives crammed with myriad responsibilities, learning the Hebrew words and trope takes time and intense dedication among Torah chanters, or readers. But still, they relish the opportunity. For these Jews, the elation of Simchat Torah — the upcoming holiday celebrating the start of the Torah-reading cycle — is practically a year-round affair.
“I think Torah reading is the grandest of all Jewish traditions,” says Outi Gould, who chants regularly at Oakland’s Conservative Temple Beth Abraham.
But perfecting that tradition in the modern world takes juggling.
Craig Jio of Greenbrae has found a way to fit the demands of Torah chanting into his busy schedule. The 33-year-old systems analyst pores over the tikkun l’korim while commuting by bus from Marin County to his job in San Francisco.
“It’s convenient,” says Jio, an Asian American Jew-by-choice who attends Conservative Congregation Kol Shofar in Tiburon.
Gould studies the Torah text up to three times a day in the weeks leading up to her reading. No matter how prepared she is, however, she still gets “incredibly nervous” standing on the bimah with the holy scroll unfurled.
“Afterward, I just feel really great, especially if I did it well,” says the 51-year-old schoolteacher. “I feel just crushed if I made one mistake.”
The daughter of a Lutheran minister, Gould converted to Judaism in the spring of last year. A regular Torah chanter since taking an adult b’nai mitzvah class, she will hold the honor of chanting on Simchat Torah. The holiday begins at sundown on Sunday or on Monday, depending on one’s tradition.
Silverman, like Gould, says reading from the Torah scroll fills her with awe. She chanted for the first time last month at Palo Alto’s Conservative Congregation Kol Emeth.
“I felt this real connectedness I had never felt before,” she says.
Reading Torah so moves Silverman that the first time her trope teacher gave her a copy of the Torah text, the teacher noticed tears in Silverman’s eyes.
“People have asked me, `Why on earth are you doing this?'” says Silverman, a human resources consultant. “I wanted substance. I was tired of going to services and going through the motions and not understanding what I was doing.”
Al Finch, a member of Orthodox Congregation Chevra Thilim in San Francisco, has also experienced a heightened connection to his faith by regularly chanting Torah.
For years, he busied himself making a living and only attended services on the High Holy Days. His religious observance has increased in the last decade or so. These days, he prays and studies daily.
“Over the last 10 to 15 years, I’ve learned studying Torah and Talmud,” he says. “The more you learn, the more you learn to love it.”
Rabbi Sheldon Lewis of Kol Emeth likewise believes chanting from the Torah can deepen one’s relationship to Judaism.
“I think people who do this feel much more access to our tradition,” he says. “One feels more of a sense that `it’s mine, it’s my Torah.'”
At some congregations, one person chants the weekly Torah portion. In others, the reading is divided among a number of congregants.
At Kol Emeth, congregants do all the Torah reading. In fact, about 100 people are trained to perform the task. Synagogue classes offer other congregants the chance to join the Torah-reading team.
Volunteers also do nearly all the Torah chanting at Conservative Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco. There, organizing the readers is a job unto itself for congregant Marshall Schwarz.
Three years ago, Schwarz made a simple request to wrangle up a few readers for the Torah portion each week. Now he’s juggling a mega-production of up to 130 different readers per year.
A 51 year-old systems analyst, Schwarz spends long hours each week assembling groups of up to seven readers to chant Torah for each service. He even makes cassette recordings on the fly to prep beginning readers.
“I like getting as many people involved as possible,” he says. “I like what it does for the synagogue.”
With 15 services taking place from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah, Schwarz has hardly come up for air in recent weeks. That’s fine with him, though. He so loves Torah that the license plate on his Honda says: “BAL KRIA,” Hebrew for master of reading.
Finch is a master reader in his own right.
The 61-year-old Chevra Thilim member is tone deaf, an undeniable obstacle in a discipline based on melody. “That’s still my worst problem,” he says. “If someone does it with me, I hear it and I’m fine, but I don’t hear it on my own.”
Still, the retired bank owner has made significant progress since starting to read Torah five years ago.
“Some of the guys in the shul tell me I’m doing pretty good,” he says proudly.
But while the melody poses a challenge for Finch, reading the Hebrew words is simpler.
“When you first get started, you know 10 to 20 percent of the words, and it grows and grows,” he says. “It’s a matter of practicing. The more and more you read, the more the words become familiar.”
After reading Torah regularly for years now, Finch feels he has forged a stronger link to his ancestors.
“I knew my family for many generations were learned and religious people,” he says. “I didn’t want to be the one to break the chain.”