Long Beach, CA - It was a sight that many Jews never experience, and it was taking place in front of dozens of children like 7-year-old Bas Sheva Popack, who came with her family to see the new sefer Torah at Shul by the Shore.
“It looks special,” said Popack, who got to see the hand-lettered scroll completed up-close at the congregation's Torah celebration Sunday at the SeaPort Marina Hotel on Pacific Coast Highway.
Shul by the shore gets new torah
Long Beach, CA – It was a sight that many Jews never experience, and it was taking place in front of dozens of children like 7-year-old Bas Sheva Popack, who came with her family to see the new sefer Torah at Shul by the Shore.
“It looks special,” said Popack, who got to see the hand-lettered scroll completed up-close at the congregation’s Torah celebration Sunday at the SeaPort Marina Hotel on Pacific Coast Highway.
The shul, which is run by the Chabad movement and serves Jews of various backgrounds, has services at the hotel on Friday nights and Saturday mornings.
By tradition, the Torah scroll is lettered by hand there are 304,805 hand-lettered Hebrew letters in a scroll, which cannot touch other letters and was commissioned by Dr. Robert L. Winer of Long Beach. It was inscribed in Israel over a period of more than a year, but the scribe, or sofer, left unfilled a few outlines of letters toward the scroll’s end. The Torah is Judaism’s holiest book.
The ceremonial work was completed by the steady hands of Yosef Teitelbaum, a Chabad rabbi from Sherman Oaks, who used a quill to fill the outlines while ceremonial music played nearby and children watched him work up-close.
“I just stay focused,” said Teitelbaum. “When you finish the last letter of the Torah, there’s this rush of adrenaline … a feeling of joy. It’s kind of like a marriage, when they cement that relationship. The moment it’s done, it’s amazing.”
Sunday’s ceremony came out of discussions Winer had in 2004 with the shul’s Rabbi Abba Perelmuter after Winer donated a Torah to his family’s Ohio synagogue, and illustrated Megillah scrolls to that synagogue and the Shul by the Shore.
Perelmuter told Winer of his wish for the shul to have a Torah scroll written especially for it, and Winer received the scroll from his New York broker about two weeks ago.
He noted that the ceremony took place one day after the two-day festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the Torah.
“This is a present for the future generations of our shul,” the rabbi told the audience. “As much as we’ve done today for the Jewish community in Long Beach … it gives us more impetus for us to go out there and do even more.”
The shul has two other Torah scrolls, but the new one has special meaning.
“This was written for the shul,” Winer said. “That’s what makes this different.”
shmuli
way to go rabbi abba perelmuter, nice to see your succeses and what you do out there.
nice to see how it’s growing,
hatzlacha rabba.
mendy
time for a new building lichatchla ariber man
Yankel Borenshtain
abbe, hust git geduhnzhet, mazel tov
Franchoiz
Berel
Rabbi Selowyn
Good to see you in action there. Hatzlacha Rabba!
Shliach Sydney 5764
Bal Koreh in Newtown Shul
hi
Mazal Tov Abba and Chanie!
S&M SILBERSTEIN
HEY RABBI SELWYN SEE YOU HIDING OVER THERE,WHAT A GOOD GUY HIDING BEHIND THE SCENES
What?
Does Rabbi Perelmuter know how to take pictures?
Yechi Hamelech
hey Rabbi Selwyn long time no see
good luck with everything
With love from,
all of us in North Miami Beach
Great Job!!!
Mazal tov to the entire Shul by the Shore family.
Love,
Homer, Marge and Family
Robert Winer
I am honored that the Shul by the Shore has accepted the Winer Family Torah, and that I was able to help so many people fulfill the 613th Mitzvah. It was indeed a very special and moving experience for me to have commissioned the Torah and to have been present for its completion and dedication. My family and I wish the Shul all the best…
Bob Winer