Deepening their knowledge of the Torah

The Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Centre began Mitzvah 613, a project to write a new Torah scroll for their shul, in hopes of bringing congregants together to share in the joyous process.

A Torah Fair was held last Sunday at the Jewish Centre, on Main Street in East Rockaway, so each member can celebrate the role that the Torah plays in Jewish life and in the community.

Rabbi Andrew Warmflash, who has been at the Jewish Centre for five years, first thought of the idea to write a new Torah scroll three years ago and said it’s been an enormous undertaking. “It’s important because it creates a bond between the congregation and the Torah,” he said. “People often talk about the 10 commandments but in Judaism there are 613 and one of them is to write a Torah so we’re helping people to fulfill this commandment. There is also a sense of ownership since this is will be our Torah scroll.”

Stephen Moelis, a Hewlett Harbor resident and four-year congregant, said a committee formed to hire a scribe to write the Torah last December. Once the scribe, Zerach Greenfield, was hired, Warmflash and Jewish Centre President Dan Gerstman asked Moelis if he would like to continue to oversee the project.

Moelis recruited congregants for the marketing, education, events, fundraising and tzedukah (charity in Hebrew) committees. “The project has 75 to 80 volunteers and they’ve been spectacular,” he said. “This project marks the first time the shul has engaged is something at the same time with one result coming from a collective effort.”

Greenfield, who lives in Karnei Shomron, Israel, is the sofer and oversees the writing and overall completion process of the new Torah. When asked how the Torah process works he said, “Each section is sewn together with Gid or sinew and then with sinew attached to the Atzei Chaim (wood rollers).”

The new Torah will be completed next May and will be brought into the Jewish Centre in a formal dedication process, Moelis said. “Many shuls have multiple Torahs but we thought that part of receiving a new Torah should be giving a Torah to someone else so we decided to donate our current Torah to a community who needs one in Israel,” he said.

Greenfield said he hopes the new Torah acts as a unifier for the entire congregation. “It opens a vast amount of educational opportunities to teach and learn during the coming year,” he said. “The Torah will be their guide to achieving a closer relationship to God and the Torah.”

Ongoing classes about the Torah and its literature begin this week and scholars from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City will be invited to the Centre in the coming months to spend an evening or weekend in the community, according to Warmflash. “My hope is that this will stimulate people to deepen their knowledge and appreciation, not only for the Torah but for Jewish tradition as well,” he said.

Moelis anticipates that congregants, who did not previously get involved in shul work, will volunteer their time even after the project is over. “After this project is done I hope there will not only be original core of people who always helped but also a new wave of people who had a positive experience with this project and will want to get involved in other educational and charitable ways,” he said. “I also hope they continue the feeling that they’re adding to an institution they’re apart of.”

For more information about classes, programs and activities focusing on the Torah, call the Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Centre at (516) 599-2634.