H ome

Congregation Shir Tikvah
members march the Torahs
two miles to their first
synagogue building.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN Staff Writer
JOSHUA KRISTAL Photographer

I t took 15 years for a small but vibrant
Reform congregation to go home.
Perhaps that is why the two-mile walk
from their temporary home of 11 years,
Northminster Presbyterian Church in Troy, to
their brand new synagogue building a mile
north of the Somerset Collection, was so exhil-
arating.
Janet Schenk, an active member of Congre-
gation Shir Tikvah, was among 200 members
who marched the Torahs from the church to
the new building last Sunday.
"It was very emotional for everybody
involved," she said. "For me, being a relatively
new member, [it was emotional] when [Rabbi]
Arnie [Sleutelberg] opened up the Torah when
we were going to start our march, called up the
two women, Pam Spitzer and Phyllis Wenig,
who started the congregation 15 years ago, and
handed them the Torahs."
For those incapable of walking or for others
who got tired along the way, vans followed the
march. Most members got a chance to carry a
sefer Torah during the walk.
At the synagogue, Rabbi Sleutelberg made
hamotzi and kiddush and hung two mezuzot
— both from teenage members who purchased
them on the Teen Mission to Israel two years
. ago.
The congregation plans to move in for Shab-
bat morning services, March 28.
"I wasn't really prepared for the emotion of
the moment," said Rabbi Sleutelberg. "I was
really choked up. It's been an extraordinarily
fulfilling relationship with the good folks at
Northminster Presbyterian, and so it's bitter-
sweet. We will certainly maintain our friend-
ships and close ties with them, but it's been our
spiritual home for the past 11 1/2 years —
we've had hundreds of bar and bat mitzvahs,
weddings, memorial services, holidays, namings
there. To leave that very special place is an emo-
tion-laden departure.
"Of course, it's more than offset by the joy
and excitement of finally, after all these years of
wandering, having our own spiritual home," he
said. Li]

3/20
1998

22

Members of Congregation Shir Tikvah march the Torahs home.

