New Torah Blessed by the Rain
Chabad of Cobb didn’t let a little rain spoil the joyous mood Sunday, March 22, as the congregation welcomed its third Torah. “The Jewish people have been through a lot worse than rain,” Chabad Rabbi Ephraim Silverman said in welcoming congregants and supporters to Dickerson Middle School for the completion of the scroll, written in Israel.
Representatives of the community took turns joining sofer (scribe) Rabbi Moshe Klein onstage to add letters to the Torah and complete the final two lines. Rabbi Klein said he arose at 3:30 a.m. to prepare himself for the completion ceremony, including a visit to the mikvah.
Attorney General Sam Olens was among the people who wrote letters, and the fourth-, third- and second-to-last letters were auctioned off for a total of 750 chai ($18), or $13,500.
Mayer Smith, who donated the Torah in memory of his wife, Ruth Greenspon Smith, and daughter, Carol Smith Holley, had the honor of writing the last of the Torah’s 304,805 letters, a lamed at the end of the word Yisrael. Each of those letters represents a member of the Jewish community, and just as the scroll isn’t a Torah without every single letter, Rabbi Silverman said, so every single Jewish person is critical to the community as a whole. “We need each other.”
After the Torah was lifted, rolled, tied, covered and crowned, it was placed in a plastic covering for protection from the rain and paraded three-quarters of a miles under a chuppah to the synagogue. There the community danced with and blessed the Torah before holding a celebratory meal.
Gallery – All Photos by Michael Jacobs
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