Geniza

Jews take words seriously. 

 

We understand that insults can carry the power of life and death, we imagine that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are the primordial building blocks with which the universe was created and when holy books come to the end of their useful life, we treat them as we do a person, and bury them with honor and ceremony.

 

When the time comes to retire Jewish books which contain the four-letter name of God, BHA, like most synagogues, holds in them in a genizah, which means “reserved” or “hidden” in Hebrew, and is traditionally a place where Jews store sacred documents when they fall out of use. Our geniza is a large series of cardboard boxes in the shed by the pre-school garden. 

 

Every so often, the contents of a geniza are buried, in a cemetery, and that is precisely what we will be doing on Sunday, April 29.  Everyone is welcome to come out then and join our MASA students as we learn about both the high esteem that Judaism has for words and language and also to learn about Jewish burial practices.