A college friend and sailing fan once told me a story about a sailor who was about to win a ’round-the-world-solo race when he tacked away from harbor and, returning to open ocean, headed around again.
On May 20, 2009, I had a kind of fit and decided to launch “Torah: Opening the Book” on this blog. I began the four-posts/portion series with “Bamidbar,” the first portion in the book of Numbers/Bamidbar. At a number of points in the last year [2009-10], I have looked forward to completing the task I so impetuously established for myself. However, I recently looked at a calendar and realized that there are only three more portions — two more weeks in this non-leap-year reading cycle — before we complete the book of Leviticus/Vayikra. So…
…Pull into harbor? Continue around? Sail a different sea?
Whither Opening the Book?
There are so many paths to follow from here —
A different tack on portion of the week?
An exploration of the siddur?
Focus on interdenominational understanding (of Torah, siddur, etc.)?
Work on bridging the “study mechitza” (which fueled this whole enterprise in the first place)?
Re-double efforts to bring in additional voices for a collective project?
“Commence the process to become holy, as it is continuous and feeds on itself” — that’s how R. Levi Yitzchak translates the injunction opening this week’s portion. If this blog continues, how can it best serve that process?
Your thoughts are most welcome.
The “Opening the Book” series was originally presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group that for many years pursued spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.
"A Song Every Day" 
Virginia:
A suggestion is to focus on those particular Torah portions that relate to the holiday cycle–and their accompanying haftarahs. And review them during the year.
At our blogsite Torah Time, we tried to do a similar commentary on each week’s Torah portion. Our approach was a “He said/She said” type of posting after a brief summary of the Torah portion. Sadly, our efforts got run over by our travels early in the Torah cycle and we missed most of the year. However, our love of Torah and our studies continued and we have been drawn back to attempt this study effort again.
One thing that I would really like to try is to have a larger group of voices as you considered above to put together a larger picture of what each Torah portion brings forth in a community. We don’t live in a place where we can sit around a table with other “lovers of Torah” so a “virtual table” is the best that we can hope to attain.