An ancient Torah gets a new life

The holiday of Shavuot arrives at sundown Sunday, providing Jews with an opportunity once again to mark the anniversary of God giving the Torah at Mount Sinai more than 3,300 years ago.

For members of Congregation Beth Torah in Torrance, Shavuot carries even deeper meaning this year.

On Sunday afternoon, they will hold a ceremony to dedicate a refurbished Torah that may be more than 350 years old.

The congregation of 63 families will carry the Torah seven times around the parking lot of the synagogue, in a West Lomita Boulevard office building, just as a Jewish bride circles a groom seven times beneath the wedding canopy.

“We’re going to be welcoming it, cherishing it,” said Rabbi Gary M. Spero.

Synagogue Vice President and Treasurer Michael Kraus bought the scroll in an EBay auction and paid to have it painstakingly refurbished. It came from Israel.

Kraus said the local scribe was able to determine by the scroll’s ink that it was written between 1650 and 1750. It is believed to have come originally from Poland, Germany or Austria.

The synagogue has no additional information about the Torah, other than the fact that it survived the Holocaust and that its sheep-skin is as soft as velvet -- the result of generations of Jews reading from it.

That’s what Congregation Beth Torah plans to do again on Sunday. After completing the seven circuits in the parking lot, congregants will unfurl the Torah inside the synagogue and read the Ten Commandments, just as Jews do every year at this time.

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Civil union

An Episcopal priest from Pasadena will be on hand this weekend when one of the nation’s most visible gay clergymen will be formally joined with his partner in a civil union ceremony in New Hampshire.

After the civil union for the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson and Mark Andrew, the Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Church will preach at religious commitment ceremony.

“I’m very honored to have been asked to do that,” Russell said this week.

Robinson is the nation’s first openly gay Episcopal bishop, and his election as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003 has roiled some dioceses in the Episcopal Church and strained relations between the U.S. church and parts of the worldwide Anglican communion. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the Anglican Church.

Russell spoke on Wednesday, the same day the California Supreme Court rejected challenges to its historic May 15 decision permitting same-sex couples to wed.

The court also refused to delay enforcement of the decision until after the November election, when California voters will consider an initiative that could reinstate a ban on weddings for gays and lesbians.

The court’s 4-3 vote means same-sex marriages can begin June 17.

Russell said the first such wedding at All Saints is set for June 19, when two lesbians are scheduled to wed. The Rev. J. Edwin Bacon Jr. will preside.

“We are absolutely preparing to add more weddings to our schedule at All Saints,” Russell said. Russell is president of Integrity, a nonprofit organization pushing for full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Episcopal Church.

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Views of the divine

Two new art exhibitions are continuing in Los Angeles this month, and they offer differing views of the divine -- one Christian, one Buddhist.

“Imagining Christ” opened May 6 at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center and attempts to illustrate how the faithful in medieval and Renaissance Europe perceived Jesus Christ.

The painted images are arresting and, to modern eyes, often surprising. “The Worship of the Five Wounds” by early 16th century Flemish illuminator Simon Bening, for example, doesn’t portray Christ’s body. Instead, it shows just a heart surrounded by hands and feet punctured with the nails of crucifixion.

A painting on parchment from 12th century England, apparently intended to show Christ’s humanity, depicts him as 12-year-old boy accompanying his parents to Jerusalem for Passover.

Times arts writer Suzanne Muchnic, writing in Calendar shortly after the show’s opening, described the efforts of Kristen Collins, a manuscripts curator at the Getty: “She has organized a three-part show intended to give visitors a sense of how Christ’s image evolved -- from an imperial judge at the end of time to a suffering human who felt the pain of his flock -- and to celebrate the artists’ imaginations.”

“Imagining Christ” ends July 27. Information may be found at www.getty.edu

A very different show continues through June 29 at the Westwood Art Forum. “Centennial Exhibition: The Vision and Art of Shinjo Ito” features sculptures, engravings, calligraphy and photography by Shinjo Ito, founder of a branch of Buddhism known as Shinnyo-en. Information on the show can be found at www.westwoodartforum.com.

Ito died in 1989 at 83, and his daughter, Shinso Ito, is now the sect’s spiritual head. On May 18 she led an interfaith ceremony to dedicate a new Shinnyo-en temple in Redwood City.

The temple occupies the former Mount Alverno Catholic Retreat Center, and a spokeswoman for the sect, Lehua Chong, said the building would retain the original stained-glass panels and church pews.

The new California temple will serve as the sect’s U.S. headquarters.

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duke.helfand@latimes.com

steve.padilla@latimes.com