Hasidic Synagogue Awaiting First Torah in 30 Years

With the first Torah scroll in Congregation Levi Yitzchok of Morristown's 30-year history right around the corner, community members are in a giving mood. Just the other day, one man surprised synagogue president Ezra Solomon by handing him $613.

That amount happens to match up with the number of mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah, Judaism's central text. The synagogue–located on the Sussex Avenue campus of the Rabbinical College of America–a training ground for rabbis who serve as emissaries for the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, will need much more generosity in the coming months as it tries to raise half of the $45,000 cost of its new scroll.

Until now, the synagogue has borrowed Torahs either from the rabbinical college or from individuals in the community who owned them. However, there is a much different feeling when a synagogue has a Torah to call its own, Solomon said. As part of the fundraising efforts, the congregation is offering individuals the opportunity to sponsor either a letter or a full parsha (weekly portion) in memory of a loved one.

"I think you feel much more part of it, everybody has a connection to it," Solomon said. "You caused it to be written."

Rabbi Zalman Wilschanski, Levi Yitzchok's spiritual leader, said the congregation will not hold a ceremony to welcome the new Torah until at least after this fall's Jewish holidays, which end by the start of October. Solomon estimated that the process to raise the balance of the Torah's cost will take about two months.

Scribe Moshe Klein began writing the scroll about a year ago in Morristown and then wrote the rest in Israel, but left a small section incomplete so he could finish the project back in Morristown. Now, the Torah is at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y., until the rest of the money is raised. The synagogue did not actively fundraise for the Torah while it was being written.

Since congregation does not have any official members, with services attended mostly by teachers from the rabbinical college, many doubted that it could ever raise enough money for a Torah scroll. But two years ago, Solomon challenged the synagogue to do just that in order to "lift the community up to create unity," he said. Last year a week before Rosh Hashanah–the Jewish New Year–Levi Yitzchok found itself $10,000 short of the amount it needed to place an order for the Torah. However, after a vigorous campaign led by Solomon, the synagogue made the mark hours before the holiday.

"We knew that if we could get half, we would get the whole amount," Solomon said.

In addition to rabbinical college teachers, about 20-30 separate families from Morristown regularly attend services at Levi Yitzchok. The presence of the rabbinical college also leads to frequent guests, Solomon said, and on a normal week, the synagogue draws 60-70 people for Shabbat services on Saturday morning.

"We cater to all the college staff and their families, so it can be a big crowd," he said.

Wilschanski said that, "a new Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) is a tremendous thing in any setting and in any way," stressing that there is specific a commandment within the Torah to write a Torah scroll.

"It's a community shul (synagogue) and the scroll is going to be serving the community," Wilschanski said.

Dr. Zvi Weiss, who has been attending the synagogue for 19 years, said that participating in the writing of a Torah "gives everyone a sense of greater connection with God."

Solomon said that because a new Torah is on the horizon, congregants are asking: "What's next?" The man who gave him $613 said that for now, Solomon could use the donation for the Torah, but that he eventually would like to see the money go toward the cost of a new synagogue building. 

"[The Torah] portends of good things for the members of this shul and the community at large," Weiss said.