May 2013: The world’s oldest complete Torah scroll was found in a university archive in Bologna, according to an Italian professor of Hebrew Studies. Professor Mauro Perani stated the text could be from the 12th century. The precious parchment scroll had been classified by the university library as being from the 17th century and was named simply “Scroll Number Two”. He noticed that the text did not conform to key changes in Torah writing brought about in the 12th century, adding that it contained letters and signs that were banned by Jewish scholar and philosopher Moses Maimonides in the 12th century.

The Torah was among around 30 Jewish manuscripts in the university library that Perani began to catalogue in February of this year. The scroll is very rare because when manuscripts spoil they lose their holiness and can no longer be used. They are then buried, according to the halakhah that forbids erasing G-d’s name, leading to the burial or storage (“genizah”, in Hebrew) of holy documents. This particular scroll’s state of conservation is excellent.

Carbon dating in Italy and the United States confirmed the professor’s findings, placing the manuscript between the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The intact scroll is 36 meters (118 feet) long and 64 centimeters wide and had been mislabelled by an archivist in 1889 because the text looked awkward and contained uncommon annotations. The archivist mislabelled a splendid manuscript.

The city of Bologna has long had a large Jewish community and the university first began teaching Hebrew Studies in the 15th century. The oldest previously known scroll dates from the late 13th century, although a biblical codex, which has a book form instead of being rolled up exists in Saint Petersburg that dates from 1008. Tens of thousands of Torah scrolls were also destroyed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy or re-used to bind books.

October 9, 2012: Jews rejoiced with the Torah in Isaac’s Hall (Ulam Yizchak) in Hevron on Monday night for a second round of Hakafot, an Israeli tradition that combines identifying with the Diaspora’s Simchat Torah night and the added festive atmosphere of live bands and sound systems at the dancing, forbidden on the holiday itself.

Ulam Yitzchak is the main hall of the Cave of the Patriarchs (Me’arat Hamachpela) which is the burial cave and tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, and Leah

As part of a new Israeli initiative, the Chumash (Five Books of Moses) has been published using the Jewish index. The chapter division of the Hebrew Bible being used today is not a Jewish, but a Christian, one.

It became the accepted division worldwide as the Bible was translated into Latin and many other languages, even though the chapter endings seem arbitrary and even illogical.

For example, Samuel I ends in the midst of the saga of King Saul’s death, whereas the Jewish sages considered the book of Samuel to be one, undivided book.

Some scholars believe that the chapter divisions were the work of the students of Cardinal Hugo of Saint Cher, 1240 C.E. who was trying to write a concordance. It is more generally believed that Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury (1228 C.E.), is responsible for them.

Shiva Le’Bitzaron, the Project for Restoring the Jewish Index & Division of the Bible – is trying to get Jews to return to the original Jewish index. “The psukim (verses) are ours (Jewish –ed.),” explained project head Betzal’el Ariel. “The question is where to start a new chapter. When you divide a text into chapters, you bring your own ideas and ideology to this division.”

“Our sages,” he explained, “made their own division which we call seder (lit. order –ed.), which means to organize: organize our learning, our thoughts, and our belief. We want to restart using this original Jewish division.”

The separation of verses in the Bible is universally according the Jewish mesorah. This is the tradition handed down through the ages to which the tropes [symbols designating the tune for reading that indicate where phrases and verses end, ed.] adhere.

The verse numbering, however, was later arranged to suit the Christian chapter divisions, starting to count anew at the beginning of each chapter. This numbering is attributed to the 16th century printer Stephanus, who did it for convenience.

It is the chapter division and the verse numbering that will go back to their original Jewish roots in this project, an aspiration that can be fulfilled now that the Jewish nation has come home.