Texas Jewish Community Celebrates Torah Completion

Children played, whiskey flowed and kosher hot dogs seared as dozens celebrated one of the most sacred events in the Jewish community Sunday afternoon.

The completion and dedication of a Torah, or the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, is for many a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, said Sholem Ber Hecht, 65.

The New York rabbi traveled from his hometown to Edinburg to witness the completion of the Rio Grande Valley Children’s Torah, which will be housed at 3707 W. Alberta Road. His 10th son, Rabbi Asher Hecht, is one of the main organizers behind the new Chabad children’s center.

Chabad is an international organization that does not draw lines between denominations, the elder Hecht said. There are more than 2,000 branches around the world, and now Edinburg has one, too.

The center will be an educational place where children will engage in various community outreach programs, the elder rabbi said. And like all places of Judaic worship, a torah was required.

The text, held in two scrolls, embodies the spirit of Judaism, Hecht said. And they don’t come cheap. Scribes have been writing Torahs in the same exact manner for centuries, he said. The ink and parchment must be made a certain way, and it takes about a year for a scribe to complete one. They can cost between $25,000 and $40,000.

It is tradition for the scribe to leave out the last 47 letters of the text so that communities can personalize them. Letters were sold to families at the new center in Edinburg, where children and adults got to hold the scribe’s hand while he finished printing the text with a white feathered pen.

Zev Tafel bought and dedicated the new Torah to his grandparents — Zev and Deborah, who died during the Holocaust — and to the Jewish children of the Rio Grande Valley, said Shmuel Baun, a South Padre Island resident who traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel, in June to bring the sacred object.

“This is a reason to celebrate. L’chaim (to life),” Hecht said in Hebrew as he raised his glass.