Ostracon from ‘Izbet Sartah (1200–1000 b.c.) showing characters of the first Hebrew alphabet
Some 3000 years ago the Hebrews invented the first “phoenetic” alphabet. Technically this breakthrough was the use of characters ot represent vowels. The effcct, however, was not unlike the advent of printing or the internet … the average Jew could now read!
What did they read? Without printing there were still few books but the scribes saw the ability to read as a way to spread what for any other people would have been just normal tradition and the poems sung around the camp fire. Reading our tales, our history became the Jews central cultural trait! (read more about the role the alphabet has played in Jewish history and about my family’s role in preserving part of that collection of the written word.
While the script later changed, one word was still written in the ancient letters … 
No one knows how these letters were pronounced. The closest we can come using our roman letters is “YH (oo, V, or alh H) could even be “Yahoo! The tradition I like is that the letter spell not a name but a symbol for a deity with no name and the owrds in Hebrew, “I am that I am.”
The magic associated with those letters and with the books, the Torah, is among the greatest of human mysteries.
That event, the gift of the Torah, has its own holiday! Today, immediately following the seven-day festival of Sukkot comes the festival of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah (September 25-27, 2013) when we conclude – and begin anew – the annual Torah reading cycle. At the moment when the first words of genesis are read, the teacher, the rabbi tells everyone to consider themselves as actually being at the foot of Mt. Sinai hearing the words for the first time!
An email I just got from Chabad says this very well
” The holiday is marked with unbridled rejoicing, especially during the “hakafot” procession, as we march, sing and dance with the Torah scrolls.
“On Simchat Torah,” goes the chassidic adage, “we rejoice in the Torah, and the Torah rejoices in us; the Torah, too, wants to dance, so we become the Torah’s dancing feet.”
As the month of Tishrei comes to a close, we have experienced and celebrated the most powerful moments of the Jewish year. As the Torah reading cycle comes to an end, we have read, studied and were inspired by its timeless teachings. As we progress through the new year and start reading the Torah all over again, what new lessons, insights, and inspiration will we derive this time around?”