Description: The Five Books of the Hebrew Bible referred to as The Five Scrolls are read in the synagogues on the Sabbath and on holy days. They are ordered according to their use in services during the year. Each book offers the believer a timeless model of what it means to be Jew, a man or woman who has been liberated from slavery and redeemed by God.

Canticle of Canticles celebrates the power of love to defeat both death and the torrential assault of time that rushes all the living toward the abyss.

Ruth is example par excellence of the interior life. She is able to discern the invisible light of Providence through the darkness that veils our existence in this world.

Lamentations, read on the days commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, expresses ultimate confidence in God despite the ruin of hope and the prospect of death.

Ecclesiastes, a book of skepticism and despair, teaches us to see clearly and without illusion that even in the face of evil, death, and the darkest night, there is the hidden presence of God.

Esther, the worthiest woman among all the daughters of Israel, acts for God on a mission to save her people. The greatest miracle celebrated in the annual feast of Purim is her conversion of the corrupt and lewd King Ahasuerus. She thereby demonstrates that the life of a Jew, because of his or her faith, is galouth, simultaneously a miracle of God and a sacrifice to Him.

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