Temple Welcomes Hand-Scribed New Torah ‘As We Would a Bride’

Rabbi Moshe Klein finally got the last word in.

The fourth-generation Jewish scribe from Brooklyn, N.Y., finished a handwritten copy of the 3,000-year-old Torah in a rare, two-hour ceremony witnessed Sunday by more than 200 members of the Temple Adat Elohim in Thousand Oaks.

Using a feather quill, Klein wrote the last 120 letters in the temple’s new copy of the Torah, a scroll that defines the laws and culture of Judaism. He spent a year copying the document in the traditional fashion, using indelible ink on animal-hide parchment wound around two wooden rollers.

The Torah, which is written in Hebrew, is equivalent to the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is a history from the Creation to the death of Moses.

“It is the most sacred object we have,” said Temple Adat Elohim Rabbi Alan Greenbaum. “We welcome the Torah as we would a bride, under a wedding tent with a procession.”

Greenbaum called the Torah “a wedding ring, the symbol of the relationship between God and the Jewish people.”

Elaine and Steve Gewirtz carried the Torah, leading a procession of family members into the synagogue during the ceremony. Music played and the couple walked beneath a traditional wedding tent, called a huppah. The Torah was placed on a table in the center of the temple where Klein went to work fashioning the last letters of the document.

“I got all choked up, my wife cried,” Steve Gewirtz said.

The Gewirtz family paid for the commission of the temple’s newest Torah: a special three-quarters-size edition lightweight enough for youngsters to tote it during bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah ceremonies. More than 100 other synagogue members paid to have one of the last 120 letters penned in their honor.

Elaine Gewirtz said young people in the past were unable to carry the temple’s other two standard-size Torahs when they were called to read during services. “We have a lot of families and a lot of children,” she said.

Greenbaum said the procession of singing children, who entered the temple just before the Torah, is symbolic of the importance they play in the Jewish faith.

According to an ancient story, Greenbaum said, God tells the Jewish people, “I’ll give you my Torah, but what will you give in return to guarantee its safekeeping?

“First, the prophets are offered as guarantors, but God says no,” Greenbaum said.

“Then, the sages are offered, but God still says no. Finally, they say, ‘We’ll give you our children,’ and God says OK.”