September 2014
I was made way back in 1842,
By a humble man, a real G-d fearing Jew.
Who did his work with honesty, feeling and with pride,
He was known in Kiev as Yankele the Scribe.
With loving care, his hand so sure and still,
He formed me with some parchment, ink and quill.
Each day he’d slowly add to me just a few more lines,
With words to last until the end of time.
(Famous ode to a Sefer Torah written by Abie Rottenberg to the tune of Chassal Siddur Pesach. We will complete the poem as the article continues)
The other day my shul celebrated a hachnasas sefer Torah. Such a simcha is one of the purest one can attend.
The sefer Torah being donated to the shul was not a new one. Rather, it is a one-hundred-year-old sefer that was used in many shuls and communities on both sides of the Atlantic until the 1960’s. It was, then, placed in a crate and forgotten about for many years until it was recently handed over after a death of a relative of one of my members. It had recently gone through a long process of being checked and fixed, prepared for regular usage.
The story behind this sefer Torah only added to the celebration. Having sat alone for so long, it will now be read again, and placed together with the other sifrei Torah.
It was coming back to a home.
The singing in the street, the dancing, and the hakafos and other various minhagim performed upon its arrival to its new family were all a sight to be seen.
…And on the day that I was finally complete,
The whole town came and filled the narrow street.
And they sang and danced and held me high and carried me away,
To the little wooden Shul where I would stay.
And as the Rabbi held me close against his chest,
He spoke out loud and clear to all the rest.
He said, “No matter if you’re very young, or even if you’re old,
Live by the words you’ll find inside this scroll.”…
Over the next few weeks we will iy’H discuss the writing, completion and the celebration of a sefer Torah; its various laws and its fascinating minhagim and stories.
Rav Steinman, in a drasha by a hachnasas sefer Torah (Toras Emes Likut Hachnasas Sefer Torah, p. 53ff) wonders why we go to such a celebratory degree for a new sefer Torah. After all, in most cases the shul to which the sefer is being dedicated already has other sifrei Torah to read from, and, the new sefer Torah need not be special or unique from the others in any way.
Furthermore, he points out, according to many the mitzvah to write a Torah can today be fulfilled with the purchasing of any important sefer, say, a shas. On that note, do we celebrate in the same manner when a new shas is purchased for a shul? Why, even for the purchase of the one-hundred and fifty volume ‘Mesivta’ Shas –a shas that has revolutionized the study of daf yomi– does not engender such joyous activity!
What is unique about a hachnasas sefer Torah that causes us to literally rejoice in the street?
Rav Steinman points to a gemara (Sanhedrin 102b) that questions why the wicked King Achav merited twenty-two years of kingship. In sefer melachim (1:20:2-9) we learn how Achav was forced by the Syrian king Ben Hadad of Aram to give up everything, even his family. Achav agreed to the demands, yet refused to give up his sefer Torah.
Concludes the gemara that Achav merited twenty-two years of kingship because he honored the Torah which is made up of twenty-two letters.
Now, continues Rav Steinman, would not our questions be equally valid for this gemara as well? Why would Achav go to such an extreme to save this one sefer Torah when there would be many more in the world remaining? Why would this noble yet apparently superfluous act cause such Divine reward to be placed upon this wicked king?
To all this, Rav Steinman gives us a wonderful insight. Chazal teach (mishneh, Sanhedrin 37) that Man was created alone in order to impart the lesson that if one destroys but one life it is as if he destroyed the entire world, and similarly should one sustain one life it is as if they had sustains the entire world.
Explains Rav Steinman, this ideal is true for human life and one other area: a sefer Torah. Just as one person can turn into the whole world –as did Adam harishon– so does each and every sefer Torah carry within it the potential to teach, and to change, the entire world!
…Three days a week they read from me out loud,
It filled my soul with joy, it made me proud.
They followed each and every verse with fire in their eyes,
The words that told them how to live their lives.
But the hatred from the west came to Kiev,
And they rounded up the Jews who had not fled,
But Moishele the Shammos, he was brave and he was bold,
He hid me in his cellar, dark and cold…
This potential is unique to Torah sh’bksav but is not true by Torah sh’baal peh, and other sefarim, as we see from the story of Osniel ben Kenaz. The gemara relates (Temurah 16a) that by the time Yehoshua finished mourning for Moshe rabeinu thousands of halachos were forgotten. Not being able to turn to prophets –for the Torah may only be learned through human study and not from the heavens (Devarim 30:12) – Osniel ben Kenaz was able to use his penetrative skills to relearn these forgotten laws from the verses in the Torah itself.
Concludes Rav Steinman, that Osniel could have only done this for sh’baal peh, but as for Torah sh’bksav no human intuition could ever cause someone to ‘figure out’ the Divine verses of the Torah on their own. Should a Torah have R’l even one letter be missing, one word be absent, on break be misplaced, we would have no way of rediscovering the truth.
…But it was someone else who found my hiding place,
And to America he sent me in a crate.
And the men who took me off the boat, they said I was a prize.
But they were Jews I did not recognize…
Perhaps for this reason is the mitzvah of writing a sefer Torah the last mitzvah found in the Torah, and the first mizvah found in the Torah is pru u’revu; the Torah bookends the importance of populating the world with individual physical potentials, and ends on the same note with spiritual potentials.
Indeed, many sefarim tell of a segulah for having children through the dedication of and/or the celebrating with a new sefer Torah.
…And in a case of glass they put me on display,
Where visitors would look at me and say,
“How very nice, how beautiful, a stunning work of art,”
But they knew not what was inside my heart.
And across the room I saw upon the shelf,
Some old friends of mine who lived back in Kiev.
A silver pair of candlesticks, a menorah made of brass,
We’d all become mere echoes of the past…
While the rest of the world searches for our secret –to our successes and our survival – and as we sadly witness a generation of Jews searching anywhere but home for their self-worth, we need a reminder from time to time that there is little mystery, and no other ‘new’ path for us to venture upon.
Our dancing in the street, our pure joy, arrives from an epiphany of the already known, but sometimes forgotten – lulei sorascha sha’ashuai, az avidity b’oni/if not for the Torah I would perish in my (mental and physical) anguish (Tehillim 119:92).
If anyone wishes to know the ‘secret’ to our survival, if any Jew is searching for meaning, the key is laid out in the open. On the holiest day-Yom Kippur, in the holiest hour-Neilah we say it loud and clear: Ein Lanu Shir Rak HaTorah Hazos!
…So if you hear my voice, why don’t you come along And take me to the place where I belong And maybe even sing and dance when you carry me away To some little wooden shul where I can stay.
And as the rabbi holds me close against his chest, He’ll speak out loud and clear to all the rest. He’ll say, “No matter if you’re very young, or even if you’re old Live by the words you’ll find inside this scroll.”
We will iy’H continue next week with the laws of writing and donating a sefer Torah.
Shul Chronicles 
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