This is not an article about Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. (I can just hear all that clicking out there to see if there's something else more exciting on the web.) No, this is going to be about a different kind of hiddenness; something which is, in fact, more secret than the much-advertised and much-told secrets of Kabbalah, which are these days accessible to any web surfer for the price of a local phone call.

For the Judaism best known to millions of Jews is the Judaism of the synagogue; of the public rituals of reading the Torah and listening to the rabbi's sermon. For many, this is Judaism, and as such, it obscures many other aspects of Judaism which are no less than, and in many cases, even more important than what goes on in the synagogue.

The public Torah reading was originally instituted by none other than Moses himself. He did so because he understood that the Jewish people needed to hear the Torah read three times a week in order to keep in touch spiritually with the nation-forming experience of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Moses was the father of all the prophets, and he knew what he was doing. So, we do not mean here to belittle in any way the importance of either the mitzvah of reading the Torah, nor the sanctity of the synagogue.

Still, it has to be seen in perspective, as a rabbinical enactment. As such, it ranks below just about anything of direct Biblical origin---things that G-d told to Moses and are recorded in the Torah. That is why, when we finish reading from the Torah on Shabbos we are not allowed to tie a knot to bind the Torah until the next reading. Making a lasting knot is a violation of the laws of Shabbos, which, as Biblical law, take precedence over reading the Torah. Likewise, if a mistake is found in the way the Torah was copied down, it may not be corrected on Shabbos, because writing and erasing are also proscribed on Shabbos.

There are numerous mitzvos which are performed in one's private life, far from the hush and plush of the synagogue, which are also deeply meaningful, though they may never attract the notice of the crowd---nor should they. So, for example, one who is meticulous in his or her Shabbos observance, whether in public or at home, is doing something of great significance. Our Sages teach that if the entire Jewish people would keep Shabbos just two weeks in a row, the messianic era would automatically ensue.

On an ordinary weekday, too, there is no dearth of mitzvos to perform, though they may lack the glamour of a public act. For example, it's quite a challenge, recognizing the fact that your fellow Jew is created in the image of G-d and should be treated accordingly when he just crashed your computer with his defective computer game; or after she hogged the credit for your winning idea at the office. Yet, we are enjoined not to hold a grudge; not to gossip; not to cheat or give bad advice; not to cause him physical, financial or emotional harm.

The Torah does not look upon these matters as petty (though we may act in a petty fashion). On the contrary, the Sages say that someone who refrains from speaking against another is like one who holds up the entire world. Whether it is a housewife sweeping up a banana peel from the floor of her home so that no one will slip and (hilariously) fall and get hurt; or the office worker who greets his colleagues and clients with a smile, it is in the little things of life that personal greatness shines forth.

There is an ancient Jewish teaching that before a baby is born, an angel comes to him in his mother's womb and teaches the fetus the entire Torah. When the time comes for him to be born into this world, the angel strikes him on the mouth, causing him to forget all the knowledge he has acquired. The knowledge is forgotten, and not readily accessible, but does still exist in the person, residing in his deepest memory. His whole life is to be spent in learning and regaining what was made known to him explicitly in the womb.* In this sense, the whole Torah and all of its commandments are hidden within each one of us; our task is to dig down into the recesses of our being and bring that Torah to light.

This, then, is the hidden Torah. It is hidden, not only in cryptic Kabbalistic texts, but in the homes and hearts and minds of good Jews everywhere who are striving to sanctify the world around them with an ever-deepening spirituality.

* Here the question is asked: Why is one taught the Torah in the womb, only to be made to forget it afterwards? The answer is that G-d wants us to earn the merit of knowing His Torah by exerting ourselves in studying it throughout our lives. In this way we can earn eternal reward for doing His will. It is first taught to us in the womb, however, as an act of kindness; because it is easier to relate to something one is already familiar with than something completely alien from one's experience. The Torah is a completely spiritual entity. As such, it would be exceedingly difficult for flesh and blood creatures such as ourselves to learn and understand it at all, if it were not for that extraordinary pre-natal get-acquainted session.