West Orange synagogue’s dedication rites mark Holocaust Torah’s return to ‘life’

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Chaim Lauer, a member of Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David, imagined what the Torah would say if it could speak at the ceremony dedicating the scroll on Sunday, Dec. 11, at the West Orange Orthodox synagogue.

“You try to hear behind my voice the crack of rifles and the breaking of glass,” Lauer said. “You imagine the sound of rushing mobs and the barking of soldiers — and their dogs. But I — I wish only to hear again that nameless sofer’s soft humming from so long ago, when one by one he crafted lines into letters and letters into words…and words into me.”

The dedication ceremony marked the return to ritual use of a Torah scroll first acquired by the congregation in 1980. As part of the synagogue’s ongoing Holocaust awareness efforts, Rabbi Shmuel Rosenfeld, a sofer, or ritual scribe, made corrections to the writing on the worn parchment so that the scroll would once again be “kosher.”

At last Sunday’s event, men, women, and children helped the scribe complete the final letters of the text. Celebrants circled around the bima, sang and danced with the Torah scroll into the social hall, and then danced it back into the ark.

The scroll survived the Holocaust in the basement of a synagogue in Czechoslovakia. Inscribed in 1860 in Germany, it was being used by 1930 in Chotebor, a factory town in eastern Bohemia. The town’s population was 4,000, with a Jewish community of 70, according to AABJ&D member Arthur Schwartz, who was instrumental in enabling the congregation to fully restore the scroll.

“The day was very emotional — joy and tears mixed together,” said synagogue president Michael Luxenberg. “This Torah was left for dead 60 years ago. It was rescued and then sat as a memorial and museum piece until our shul got a hold of it.”

Now, he said, a museum piece will be woven into the living religious practices of the synagogue.

“The Torah will no longer be a memorial,” Luxenberg said. “We will read from it, and it will provide inspiration, hope, and a testimonial to the way we rose up from the ashes, thanks to the many survivors who helped grow families and communities to amazing heights. And, yes, it will also help us remember all those who suffered and died so that we can lead vibrant Jewish lives.”

Lauer picked up on a similar theme in the talk he delivered in the name of the Torah. “Do not think of me as a Holocaust Torah,” he said. “I had a long life before and after. I am a Torah like other Torot. Turn me. Turn me again. You will find everything within me.…”

The congregation’s Holocaust remembrance efforts began with a dinner last year honoring the synagogue’s Shoa survivors. It will continue with the dedication of a memorial garden in front of the synagogue this spring.

Johanna Ginsberg can be reached at jginsberg@njjewishnews.com.

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