Kansas Children Add Names to Israel Torah Project

Efforts to unite Jewish children throughout the world through the writing of a Torah scroll are taking on a uniquely local flavor in the State of Kansas, with day camps, preschools, Hebrew schools and day schools signing up students to sponsor letters in the fifth Children’s Torah Scroll to be commissioned since the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, launched the worldwide project in 1981.

“The Rebbe wanted to unite the Jewish people through the purity of children,” explains Blumah Weinberg, an educator and Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Overland Park.

When he called for the first Children’s Torah Scroll, the Rebbe specified that it should be written in Israel. By linking children to the Torah through a monetary contribution as little as a dollar, the project would make a positive spiritual impact on the world, he stressed, and help protect the security of the Jewish people and the Holy Land.

Every Torah scroll contains 304,805 letters, and writing a complete one usually takes a whole year. But in 1981, the scribes worked so quickly, and the campaign – backed by rabbinical leaders in New York and Israel, such as Rabbi Israel Abuchatzera and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein – sparked such enthusiasm that the first Children’s Torah Scroll was completed just three and a half months later.

Since then, Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries have frequently encouraged community members and their children to sign themselves up, and in April, officials in Israel announced that the fifth such scroll was nearing completion. At the time, they said that only 62,882 letters were left to be purchased.

Wineberg, whose husband, Rabbi Sholom B. Wineberg, directs Chabad-Lubavitch activities in Kansas and Missouri, sprang into action this summer.

“We began the campaign with Jewish day camps and continued with Jewish preschools and Hebrew schools at the beginning of the school year, before the holidays,” she detailed. “We are now expanding to include all Jewish schools and families in an effort to sign up as many Jewish children under Bar and Bat Mitzvah age.

“I got involved because I felt that Israel was going through some difficulties, and the Rebbe taught us that children can help achieve unity and blessings for the Jewish people,” she continued. “Also, there is a whole new generation of Jewish children who may not know about this special Children’s Sefer Torah and we wanted them to be included. Our children deserve to grow up in a peaceful world and it is our hope that we can help achieve this through this project.”

Rabbi Shmuel Greisman, the Kfar Chabad, Israel-based director of the Children’s Torah Scroll campaign, offers a historical perspective on the current effort.

“Nobody knows for sure, but people on the street feel that Israel is going to do something about Iran any day now,” he said. “It brings to mind the situation in 1981, when Israel secretly bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor right around the time the Rebbe initiated the Torah campaign. So people are making the association today and are registering as many children as possible.”

Wineberg is optimistic that the fifth scroll will be completed in the next few months.