Law as Love. One of the most amusing scenes in Anglo-Jewish history occurred on the 14th of October,

1663. A mere seven years had passed since Oliver Cromwell had found no legal bar to Jews living in

England, hence the so-called return of Jews in 1656. A small synagogue was opened in Cree Church Lane in the city of

London, forerunner of Bevis Marx that was opened in 1701, the oldest still extant place

of Jewish worship in Britain. It was then that the famous diarist Samuel Peep's decided to pay a

visit to this new curiosity, to see how Jews conducted themselves at prayer. What he saw

amazed and scandalized him, as chance or providence had it, the day of his visit turned

out to be Simchat Torah. This is how he described

what he saw. And at all, their laws that they take out of the press, in other words out of the

ark, are carried by several men, four or five several burdens in all, and they do relieve one

another, and whether it is that everyone desires to have the

carrying of it, I can't tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing.

But Lord, to cedar the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention but confusion in all their

service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man

forsovere ever seeing them more. And indeed, I never did see so much or could have imagined

there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this. In other words,

this was not the kind of behavior he was used to in a house of worship.

There is something unique about the relationship of Jews to the Torah,

the way we stand in its presence as if it were a king, dance with it as if it were a bride,

listen to it, telling our story, and study it as we say in our prayers as our life and the

length of our days.

There are a few more poignant lines of prayer than the one contained in a poem said at Naila

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