c. 2006 Religion News Service
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ Jeanne Moss put her tentative hand to the quill pen, just above the surer hand of Neil Yerman. Then Yerman gently guided her as she wrote the Hebrew letter resch _ her contribution to a new Torah.
“OK now, to the right, gently,” Yerman said, as the Grand Rapids woman delicately traced the ancient letter with him. “Smooth motion. Beautiful!”
Beautiful indeed, Moss said later.
“It feels unbelievable,” said Moss, 80. “I never thought I’d have a chance to do this. It’s a kind of holy feeling.”
She described the sentiments of many who are putting their personal touches on a Torah being created for Temple Emanuel’s 150th anniversary next year.
The congregation hired Yerman, a New York City scribe of Jewish Scripture, to help members write their own Torah scroll. Temple members are writing the opening passages of Genesis one letter at a time.
Their writings will be sewn into a Torah being written by a scribe in Israel. Consisting of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah will be used for weekly worship and bar and bat mitzvahs for the temple’s young members.
“We tried to do something that would bring our congregation together,” Rabbi Michael Schadick said. “What better gift to give ourselves than a brand-new Torah?”
It is the first Torah written by members of the 300-family congregation founded in 1857, Schadick said. The costly project is largely underwritten by two longtime members; the scroll will first be used next May.
“It links one generation to the next,” Schadick said. “Future generations will read from the handprint of those who came before.”
Yerman writes and restores Torahs with Jewish congregations around the country. Temple Emanuel is one of eight he is working with.
Yerman said every Jew is obligated to help write a Torah, citing Deuteronomy 31:19: “Now write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites.”
A Torah must contain exactly 304,805 letters, and each writer’s contribution is crucial, Yerman said.
“If one writes so much as one letter in a Torah scroll it is as if they have written the entire scroll themselves, because that letter completes the scroll,” Yerman said.
He told members the history of Torahs read in the U.S. and written in Europe by Jews over 2,000 years of persecution. They prayed their children’s children would write a Torah in a land of peace.
“This,” he told them, “is the prayer you answer.”
Their Torah should last 150 to 250 years and its shiny letters will inspire future generations, Yerman said.
Being part of that moved Kathy Osborn, a recent convert from Grand Rapids. She helped write the sentence, “And God said ‘Let there be light.”’
“The words are so old and yet so present,” Osborn said. “To actually write one and know it’s going to be here 100 years from now, it’s a pretty powerful experience.”
(Charles Honey writes for The Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich.)
KRE/PH END HONEY
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