When Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Sunday, Oct. 2, members of Chabad of South Austin/Young Jewish Professionals will hold their first minyan since last Yom Kippur. Together, they will celebrate not only the start of the Jewish New Year, but the welcoming of a new Sefer Torah.
“We just heard we would be getting a new Torah,” said Rabbi Mendy Levertov, co-director of the Chabad center with his wife, Mussy. “It’s so exciting for our congregation. This is difference between having weekly service and not having one because without the Torah, we can’t read the weekly portion together. This Torah will help us be able to grow and build a weekly minyan.”
Adding to the significance is that the Torah is dedicated to five slain Dallas police officers who lost their lives this summer in the line of duty.
“I work closely with the Austin Police Department and have a good relationship with them. For us, it is very important to recognize the protection that the police give us and the service they provide to the community,” explains Levertov. “We are proud to have a Torah that ties together Jew and non-Jew, law enforcement and our community, and enforces that strong connection during the High Holidays.”
The Torah is being sent to Austin on an open-ended contract by the Beis Yisroel Torah Gemach—a project of Merkos Suite 302 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. The organization collects Torah scrolls in unusable condition and repairs them before sending them off on loan to congregations and communities in need of them, a great many to Chabad centers.
The eventual goal is to have the recipients rally to raise funds for a permanent Torah.
Honoring Security Forces
Bentzion Chanowitz, who runs the daily operations of the Torah Gemach, noted that other refurbished scrolls have been dedicated in memory of security forces—in this case, for the officers shot down on July 8; and in the past, in memory of fallen soldiers and or terror victims in Israel.
“We just read the weekly Torah portion about the need for shoftim with shoftrim—appoint judges and police officers—and I felt for the Jewish community, this would be a nice kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of G‑d’s name.”
Rabbi Yochanan Marsow of Bais Menachem Mendel in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, who serves as a rabbinic adviser to the Torah Gemach, thought “it was a great idea,” says Chanowitz. “He said in many times throughout history, the Jewish community honored the government.”
Chanowitz approached an anonymous donor, who agreed to help underwrite the cost of repairing the Torah and designing the mantel. The inscription of the blue velvet Torah cover includes the names, badge numbers and ranks of the officers who died: Patrick Zamarripa, Brent Thompson, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahern and Michael Smith.
It says, in part: “This Torah is in memory of the five police officers who dedicated and sacrificed their lives to protect our community and the American people. May their spirit live on thru use of this Torah.”
It ends with the words “In G‑d We Trust.”
The Torah was officially dedicated last week at a gathering attended by NYPD officers and local community members before heading off to its new home in Austin.
It is one of nearly 140 scrolls—most of them them refurbished, but some new ones donated as well—that have been sent to communities around the world since the Gemach began four-and-a-half years ago. Another five scrolls are being readied for the High Holidays and will go to different divisions of Chabad Houses on campus.
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