Please tell me how can I read the Torah. I want to learn Hebrew so that I can read Torah perfectly. Please help me out.
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1Hi Caleb and welcome to Mi Yodeya. I hope you enjoy the site. I commend your aspirations; be warned that there's really no such thing as perfectly understanding torah, but answers here can give you some tips on steps to take along the way. I've edited the title of your question to (I hope) capture the essence of what you're asking; if that's not what you meant, please edit it further.– Monica CellioCommented Sep 19, 2012 at 0:37
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2Caleb, can you provide some more information of what you are looking for. There are countless online and offline resources for learning Torah, depending on your level of background and what exactly you want to learn. What Hebrew education do you have, and are you looking to study the interpretation of the Torah, or the actual chanting of the words?– MichoelCommented Sep 19, 2012 at 4:09
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Perhaps a better-asked version of what this asker meant: judaism.stackexchange.com/q/30014 or judaism.stackexchange.com/q/8795.– msh210 ♦Commented Jul 18, 2013 at 15:30
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3 Answers
Learn the alphabet first.
Tehillim (Psalms)
A Hebrew Learning Aid
Black = Root word
Blue = Prefix, Infix, Suffix
Indigo = Nikud (vowels)
Green = Trop (vocalization)
As Dan said, this requires more than just understanding the text in the five books of Moses. A perfect understanding is quite likely impossible.
For a more modest goal, the best approach is to use reliable translations, preferably multiple ones because there's no such thing as a perfect translation, while you are learning enough Hebrew to understand the original. Mechon Mamre provides a respected translation (JPS) side-by-side with the Hebrew.
Learning biblical Hebrew is probably best approached through courses rather than individual study, but I found the following two books helpful in getting a foundation (I am not fluent yet): The First Hebrew Primer (it's for adults, not kids), which is very systematic, and Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew, which explains how grammatical constructs work in English and then maps that to biblical Hebrew. This latter book won't help you until you've got some basic concepts and vocabulary, though, so work through the former first.
answered Sep 19, 2012 at 0:35
Learning the torah is not as simple as learning to read Hebrew, or even learning the biblical grammar necessary. The torah was given within a context of a particular belief system and complemented by ways of understanding that demand the invocation of that belief system. You could learn to read and then study the words and still not know anything. Please don't look at the torah as a stand alone text which can be approached in an intellectual vacuum and read or even "studied." To learn it would require changing the self and the environment and then changing the entire approach to religion. And then, starting to learn the alphabet, simple words etc. Later on, simple phrases and the notion of the tune of the torah which helps create meaning.
You could read any variety of books which summarize biblical stories, or simply go through a translation but that would still leave vast gaps.
