The BBC reports that a badly burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum has been digitally “unwrapped”, providing the first look inside it for 2,000 years. The document, which looks like a lump of charcoal, was charred by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79CE and is too fragile to ever be physically opened. Last year, a similar team managed to read about 5% of another Herculaneum scroll. Its subject was Greek Epicurean philosophy, which teaches that fulfilment in life can be found through the pleasure of everyday things. It struck me as ironic that an ancient scroll, which is now lifeless carbon, should glorify the pleasures of this world, whereas another ancient scroll, our holy Torah, which doesn’t need electrons to be accelerated to light speed to make out its message, should teach that life’s fulfilment is be found by taking the everyday things in our life and elevating them to a level of transcendence and eternity.
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Rabbi Yaakov Asher SinclairRabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair has been part of Ohr Somayach since 1987. Rabbi Sinclair gives a daily Gemara shiur in the Intermediate Program and a weekly philosophy shiur in the Mechina Program. He is a senior staff writer of the Torah internet publications Ohrnet, Torah Weekly and Seasons of the Moon. His articles have been published in many journals and magazines including the Jewish Observer, American Jewish Spirit, AJOP Newsletter, Zurich’s Die Jüdische Zeitung, South African Jewish Report and many others.
His first book Seasons of the Moon – the Auerbach Edition
