Paying It Forward – Uncovering The Journey Of Our Scroll By Ellen Finkelstein, Member of Temple Rodeph Torah (TRT) in Marlboro, New Jersey
Late one Shabbat night in April 2020, my husband Neal and I decided to watch a recording of the evening service from Central Synagogue in New York City. The sermon was given, via Zoom, by a rabbi in Paris, France. I remembered that TRT’s original Torah had been passed along to a congregation in Paris and I wondered if this rabbi’s congregation was where our Torah had gone. I asked Rabbi Weber, who said no, it had gone to another congregation in Paris. And so began my search….where had our Torah gone and where was it now? With some detective work and help along the way, I set out to trace the Torah’s journey. Here is its story.
Temple Rodeph Torah began with a meeting of a group of families in October, 1979. The congregation was incorporated in early 1980. The Torah came to TRT with the help of Rabbi Daniel Freelander of the UAHC (now the Union for Reform Judaism). In 1980, Temple Beth Am in Middletown, NY, was closing and TRT became the recipient of their Torah, along with other assorted items….prayer books, a kitchen sink, two 6 feet tall menorahs, two display cases and six dozen juice glasses. According to Rabbi Weber, we eventually got rid of the menorahs and display cases but his family used the juice glasses until the last one broke!
Temple Rodeph Torah had possession of the Torah from its arrival in 1980 until 1994. By that time, congregants Phil and Zenia Miller had donated a Torah to TRT in honour of their son Paul’s Bar Mitzvah and we also had a new Torah written for us by a Torah scribe. According to Rabbi Weber, “when TRT started the process of writing our own Torah scroll, a group of people started talking about having three scrolls. I said that personally I didn’t love the idea of a scroll just sitting in the Ark for most of the year; that’s like having a teacher you love, but never study with. Then someone said, ‘what if we gave the original scroll to another new congregation?’ Honestly, from that moment it seemed like an obvious answer to everyone there.” In that moment, Temple Rodeph Torah created the mission of this Torah….it was to be passed on to startup congregations that had no Torah. Rabbi Weber shared that he believes this is a point of pride for TRT and completely in keeping with the character of our congregation. It was time to pay it forward….
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