The goal of this project is to write a short story every week inspired by another portion of The Five Books of Moses, known in Judaism as The Torah.

This project is intended to be of equal interest to all people irrespective of their beliefs and personal relation with the Bible.  Its focus is on modern themes of interest to all of us, using The Five Books as a cultural touchpoint that the large majority of people in Western cultures share.

I have, for several years, participated in a small writing group with members of my congregation, led by Rabbi Jon Hanish and Alex Litvak.  We’ll meet for maybe five weekly sessions in a year and then disband until the new year comes around.  Our rabbi will give us a theme – and we’ll come back the next week with a few pages of writing to share and discuss.  Sometimes these works have been used in services, and most of the times they just reach a dead end and are discarded.

I wanted to create something that might continue and last and be shared with a wider audience.

My inspiration for this goes beyond our writing group.  A few years ago I had the pleasure to experience a great cinematic project by the Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski.  “The Decalogue” is a series of 10 one-hour stories, each one inspired by one of The Ten Commandments.  What really struck me about this work is the oblique way Kieślowski approaches each commandment to arrive at something much more profound and resonant than any straightforward interpretation.  For example, on the theme “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy”, a man walks out on Christmas dinner with his family – to catch up with an old girlfriend!  Yet, as the scene develops, the reunion becomes complex and difficult, and it turns out that he has broken the sanctity of his family celebration in service of a much higher value, which even his family is understanding of.  These pieces gave me an appreciation of how these overly familiar themes can serve as inspiration for an examination of modern life – sometimes challenging, sometimes tragic, sometimes comic.

In traditional Jewish services, a portion (“parshah”) of the Torah is read every week.  I include a link in each story to the parshah that inspired it, on the Sefaria website. The translation I use when I’m reading for each story’s inspiration is Robert Alter’s The Five Books of Moses, and it is also this translation I use for each story’s touchstone quote.

My hope is to bring out a story every week, very roughly corresponding to the current week’s parshah.