Children’s Literature: The Torah Is Like a Melody

The Melody by Oded Burla, illustrated by Assaf Benharroch, and translated by Ilana Kurshan; Moosic, Pennsylvania: Kalaniot Books; ISBN 9781735-087559, 22 pages, $19.99.

SAN DIEGO — A free-floating melody is in the ether; however, no one listens to it. The melody needs a sense of purpose.

So, it inquires of various geologic features  of the earth as well as a variety of animals if any of them will listen to it, and make it their own.

The melody encounters a variety of excuses, first from the mountain, then the trees, stones, river, a crow, a mole, and a horse. Nothing doing, they say.  Thanks anyway.

But then the melody notices a young mother in a garden, rocking her baby in a bassinet suspended from a tree limb. The melody secretly enters the mother’s heart.

The mother then sings to her baby a lullaby.

In an end note, the publishers inform us that the story is an allegory for the lesson taught in the Talmud that God offered the Torah to many nations, but only the Israelites were willing to accept it. “Ever since then, the Torah has been the song of the Jewish people, and in every generation its melodies are sung by new voices,” the Kalaniot publishers inform us.

Even if the child to whom you read this story on your lap doesn’t understand its allegorical meaning, he or she nevertheless will enjoy learning about the special relationship between a mother and a baby. Later, when the child gets older, parents can reveal its underlying religious meaning.

Illustrator Assaf Benharroch’s illustrations anthropomorphizing the geologic features and the animals will delight the children. He draws in an imaginative way, which may also stimulate a child’s appreciation for art.

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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com