The Israel Museum

Over Sukkot, we went to the Israel Museum. The main pull for us was the annual Kite Festival, which was cute, but less exciting than I had hoped. There were one or two professional kites, and very many kids and adults running around and occasionally tripping over each other as they tried (and about 50% seemed to manage) to get their kites aloft in the intermittent evening breeze.

My excitement for the day was found, surprisingly enough, in the Shrine of the Book. I wasn't expecting to be bowled over there, because I feel strongly ambivalent about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Sure enough, the Shrine of the Book was every bit as awkward as its name implies, and then some. Yes, I'm interested in two-thousand-year-old documents, regardless of who wrote them. But I'm decidedly uncomfortable with a museum exhibit that feels like a shrine, especially when the object of said shrine seems to have been written (and very possibly respectfully discarded) by what I'd call a group of heretics.

But then I went to the lower level of the Shrine of the Book. And I saw the actual Aleppo Codex. Let me rephrase that to begin to express my excitement: I SAW THE ALEPPO CODEX!!! Sure, this document is about a thousand years younger than the "main attraction" of its exhibit, but unlike the (religiously sketchy) Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aleppo Codex comes with an approbation from the Rambam himself.

Let me try again: I WAS IN THE SAME ROOM AS THE ACTUAL TEXT THAT MAIMONIDES USED TO WRITE HIS SEFER TORAH. I am blown away. Seriously blown away. Rambam copied his Torah scroll from the actual book that I was looking at. I TOUCHED THE GLASS CASE OF THE SAME BOOK THAT RAMBAM USED TO WRITE HIS SEFER TORAH. I'm still totally blown away.

Also, if you happen to find the huge chunk that went missing some time between 1943 and 1958, you should probably let someone know...

Speaking of the Aleppo Codex, when I was trawling the internet for links for this blog post, I came across a three-minute video. Here there be Drama.