Jewish center receives 300-year-old holy book

In a procession 70 people strong, students and Jewish leaders paraded down Seventh Street Sunday afternoon.

With Hebrew music blaring in the background, four men carrying a large blue and white shawl used in Jewish weddings led the clapping and tambourine-clambering promenade from the Indiana Memorial Union to the Chabad House, a Jewish cultural center for students.

It had arrived.

The evening marked the acceptance of a 300-year-old Torah — the holy book for Judaism — given to the Chabad House by IU alumnus Kevin McKasson in honor of his wife’s grandparents. The five sacred rolls of parchment made their journey to Bloomington all the way from Jerusalem.

“My uncle bought this from a temple in Jerusalem where it was used after it had been rescued from the Holocaust,” junior Lindsay McKasson, Kevin McKasson’s niece, said. “All Torahs are handwritten, and this is a very sacred book.”

The presence of the Tallis, a ceremonial marriage shawl, in the procession symbolizes the Torah being married to the Chabad House, Lindsay McKasson said.

The procession was marked as an important ceremony because it is considered a great honor to bring the Torah into a holy place, sophomore Edan Boukai said.

Before the procession entered the Chabad House, the leaders greeted the crowd by displaying the center’s two existing Torahs alongside the new holy scrolls.

After rabbis led a prayer, attendees broke out in a celebratory dance and songs of praise. Rabbis from Indianapolis who came to participate in the ceremony joined Rabbi Yehoshua Chincholker, director of the Chabad House in handing the velvet-encased Torah to sophomore Josh Lorch, a student active in the Chabad House. Cheers and a round of applause broke out after Lorch and Kevin McKasson made short dedication speeches and the Torah was placed in the wooden arc. Attendees received a good-luck charm in the form of a small piece of the velvet case that held the new Torah.

“The Torah is so important because it is what makes us a nation. It’s what makes us stick together even though we are scattered across the world,” Chincholker said. “We are continuing our chain of communication to the next generation, to the students of IU, and it’s not only Jewish students that this is for. Hopefully other students will be inspired as well.”

The $17,000 Torah came from Kotel, or Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the last remnant of an ancient temple where Jews go to worship, Chincholker said.

It will join the other two Torahs already at the Chabad House in a wooden arc where it will be taken out and studied weekly at prescribed times. The Torah will be read three times a week, but only if 10 or more Jewish men, also known as a minyan, can be assembled. Without this critical number, the Torah cannot be read. The reading is not just restricted to rabbis. Jewish male students interested in participating can do so too, Lorch said.

“This is a really big deal, and it’s the first time I’ve ever taken part in a ceremony like this,” Lorch said. “The Torah is so important to Jewish people. Everything we do in Judaism directly or round-aboutly comes to the Torah.”

A joint reason for celebration at the Chabad House was the opening of the house’s new kitchen, which tied in with the dedication of the Torah.

“There is this idea that if your body is hungry your soul cannot have much spiritual concentration,” Lorch said.

In the spirit of this belief, a home-cooked buffet meal that was a mixture of traditionally Jewish and American food was served at the end of the ceremony.

“I don’t participate here that much, but it’s always really special when a Torah is dedicated,” sophomore Ariel Bublick said. “This definitely isn’t something that happens often.”