Characters Of Prayer
A master scribe helps
Temple Beth El pen
a new Torah scroll.
Story by CATHY SHAFRAN
Photos by DANIEL LIPPITT
he chuppah was extended across the bimah at
Temple Beth El Sunday as the rabbis gathered
to consecrate a new union. But the marriage
witnessed by hundreds of congregants in the
main sanctuary at the Bloomfield Township synagogue was
not one of man and woman.
It was a marriage between the Torah and the People of
Israel, between the Torah and the people of Beth El.
This "marriage of spirit" came Sunday as the congrega-
tion gathered to begin work on "writing" a new Sefer
Torah, or Torah scroll, that was commissioned as part of
the Temple's 150th anniversary celebration.
Dr. Eric Ray, a master scribe from New York, is penning
the Torah. Ray, known as a Torah scholar, rabbi, artist and
expert on Jewish architecture, is among a handful of mas-
ter scribes in the world. He and a colleague in Jerusalem
will work in tandem until Beth El's Torah is complete in
about a year from now.
The painstaking process of transcribing some 300,000
Hebrew characters began with the first letter of the first
book of the Torah. A decorative "bet" was formed by Ray's
highly skilled hand. And from there he continued tran-
scribing the Torah's first word, Berishit, "in the beginning."
The scribe invited a symbolic cross-section of the con-
gregation, a representative from each generation and from
each grade in the Temple's religious school, to join him in
the transcription. They placed their hand upon his, as he
continued to etch letters in the Ashkenazi script that had
been chosen for Temple Beth El's new Torah.
"As they put their hand on my hand, I was their agent,"
said Ray, "I am writing for them."
"He surprised me when he asked me to actually write in
the letter," said Rabbi Daniel Syme. "I'd never written in a
Torah before. My hands were shaking. The fact that this
Torah is written at this time in this place, it was the right
time in my life."
Temple Beth El President Marion Freedman stood
11/27
1998
Detroit Jewish News
29