New sefer Torah dedicated in memory of 7/10 victims
Scroll completed on Tuesday evening will be used to celebrate Simchat Torah
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
Every single Jew, said Rabbi Yossi Simon, is a whole world. Which meant that the loss of one is akin to losing a world.
So Tuesday night’s event at Chabad of Golders Green had an extra poignancy, as the community both celebrated the dedication of its new Sefer Torah, and mourned the loss of 1,200 Israelis, old and young, in the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.
It was just two weeks ago that the tight-knit community made a spontaneous decision to buy a Sefer Torah, in the name of all those who had been murdered in southern israel, and at the same time to “honour those still in captivity and to act as protection for the young men and women serving in the IDF”.
People — including this reporter — lined up to sit with the sofer (scribe) Menachem Gilbert, who meticulously filled in the last 48 letters of the Sefer Torah, which had only arrived from Israel on Tuesday morning. Mr Gilbert asked each person to appoint him as their agent in order to fill in the last letters. Each of us held up a tiny feathered quill which the sofer dipped into a vegetable ink, and then filled in the relevant letter, whose shape had already been outlined onto the parchment.
For many it was a revelation that this was a mitzvah which could be performed for women as well as men: but for almost everyone it was a first time in fulfilling this incredibly personal commitment.
Among those present was Shai Shojat, whose uncle, Michel Nisenbaum, from Argentina, was tragically among those killed on 7 October. Michel, 59, was murdered in Sderot but his body was kidnapped to Gaza and not retrieved by the army until May 24 this year. Shai, who attended the ceremony with his young children, entered a letter in the sefer in his uncle’s name.
The sefer will be housed in a beautifully embroidered cover designed by Rabbi Yossi and his wife Chanie Simon’s children, together with a spectacular silver crown donated by a member of the Chabad of Golders Green community. And during Succot, the congregation will dance in the names of those who can no longer dance themselves.
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