To Each Their Torah

Redondo Beach, CA — Redondo Beach’s Jewish Community Center Chabad members added letters to finish the scrolls, two years in the making. On Sunday, the rabbi led them on a procession to celebrate the unveiling of the scrolls.

Edo Cohen looked on as a scribe scratched out his Hebrew letter on the thin parchment of the new Torah scrolls.

His letter, or shin, would be one of three to make up the name of Moses, one of the final two words added to complete the ceremonial scrolls for Redondo Beach’s Jewish Community Center Chabad.

By adding his letter to the scrolls on Sunday, the 27-year-old Cohen, of Hermosa Beach, joined Sunday in a show of Jewish solidarity.

The scrolls contain about 350,000 Hebrew letters, said Rabbi Yossi Mintz, who founded the temple in the late 1990s.

“Every Jew represents a letter,” Cohen said. “It really shows that unity.”

The arrival of the scrolls has been almost two years in the making. After a local scribe started the transcription of the biblical books Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the scrolls were taken to Israel. Fifteen months later they returned, needing about 50 letters to finish the work.

The scribes used quills to etch letters onto 54 sheets of the thin parchment sewn together and rolled onto scrolls with lacquered wood tops and inlaid silver.

Contributing a letter to a ceremonial Torah scroll is considered a mitzvah, or act of human kindness, Mintz said.

Leon Katz of Manhattan Beach handwrote his letter, which means “strength.”

“It’s a big honor,” Katz said. “It’s the most holy of Jewish law. Everything is written in the Torah.”

Once completed, Mintz presented the finished scrolls to his congregation. As rhythmic Jewish folk music filled the synagogue, Mintz covered the scrolls in a felt “mantle.”

Katz then draped a silver breastplate over the covered scrolls with the Ten Commandments etched in Hebrew. Mintz placed on top a silver triple crown dedicated to a local boy with autism.

The rabbi then led his congregants on a procession around the Vail Avenue temple with a felt huppa canopy covering the scroll. Four carried torches.

In Judaism, the Holiday of the Shavuot in late May celebrates when God presented the 613 commandments found in the Torah books to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Mintz started the temple’s journey in March 2006 by commissioning a local Hebrew scribe to begin writing a new Torah for the temple.

He then sent it to Jerusalem, where a second scribe transcribed the majority of the Hebrew words. On Sunday, the local scribe added the final words to complete the task.