This year, Ohev Shalom is all about our Centennial. We look back at
100 years since our synagogue was incorporated in Chester, and ahead to
(hopefully) another century or more of growth, spirituality, and forging deep,
new connections. You may have already seen information about this, but I wanted
to take a few minutes to highlight a participation opportunity that is about
past, present, future, and connecting to something incredibly ancient and holy.
According to Jewish Tradition, the Torah contains 613 commandments.
The book itself doesn’t list them by number (or provide a helpful index at the
back…), but later rabbis and scholars counted them, and that’s the number we’re
all going with. Many still apply today, though somewhere between 100 and 150
refer specifically to the Temple and sacrifice, so they are unfulfillable, at
least until (God forbid…) we someday try to rebuild a Temple in Jerusalem. So,
admittedly, none of us are aiming for a perfect score of 613, and yet I still
want to tell you that the very last one, Commandment #613, is within your grasp
right now, this very month at Ohev Shalom.
In Deuteronomy 31:19, just three chapters before the end of the whole
Torah, God commands Moses to write “this” down. The original intent may be
unclear, but this verse becomes the basis for the mitzvah, incumbent upon all Jews, to write their own Torah. Crazy,
right? Handwritten, with a quill, ink, and parchment; it is ludicrous to think
that each of us could EVER write such a thing!! But on Sunday, January 5th, and
then again on Sunday, the 19th, Ohev will be hosting a sofer (scribe) who will be completing the writing of a Torah
Scroll. And each of us can dedicate one or more letters, appoint the sofer to
be our emissary, and thereby “write” a part of a scroll. I know it’s not the
same as ACTUALLY writing it, but it’s pretty close, it fulfills the
commandment, and with a scroll as precious as this particular one, I think
you’ll agree that a professional really NEEDS to be doing all the writing!
You see, this is our Lostice Scroll, rescued from a small
Czechoslovakian town and thus avoiding Nazi destruction during World War Two.
The scroll itself is at least 150 years old, possibly 200 or more. It has been
on permanent loan to Ohev for 40 years, and for four decades our community has
yearned to make it kosher again, because the damage it sustained 70 years ago
made it unusable in services. And who knows when it had last been cleaned or
had letters corrected back in Lostice?! So the work we are about to complete
now, in January, 2020, thanks to the incredible generosity of Phyllis and Alan
Schapire, is likely a century in the making. Much like our Centennial.
I know I sound like an infomercial when I say this, but this kind of
opportunity doesn’t come around very often! This is perhaps a
once-in-a-lifetime deal!! You may not be holding the quill or putting the ink
directly onto the parchment, but you would 100% be participating in a
phenomenal mitzvah! It is Commandment #613, an ancient charge handed down l’Dor
va-Dor, from generation to generation, for millennia. This is a scroll that was
rescued from the horrors of the Holocaust, and is one of the last fragments of
a community whose legacy is now our responsibilty to carry on. And the
symbolism of rededicating such an invaluable piece of Judaica on this, our
Centennial, seems to me like the most perfect embodiment of past, present, and
future, of legacy and heritage, holiness and spirituality, and a chance to be
part of something eternal and enduring.
And all this could be yours, for the low-low price of… :-) You’re not
gonna want to miss this one, folks. I guarantee it.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Gerber
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