A new home for a new Torah: Chabad house welcomes holy scrolls

Tuesday evening was a night for celebration and a joyous welcome by the Chabad House of Tallahassee to its new Torah. Chabad House is a Jewish organization for FSU students and others where they may eat, study and grow a sense of their own Jewish identities.

The celebrants were not only welcoming a newly-commissioned Torah, but inaugurating the Chabad’s own new temporary home on Chapel Drive.

The reason for both a new Torah and new temporary quarters was that on May 8, 2022, around 3 a.m., an intense fire had engulfed the one-story brick structure housing the Chabad, destroying everything except the exterior walls. Inside, all furnishings, the shul (school), and particularly, two precious Torah scrolls — the central text in Judaism, containing the five books of Moses in Hebrew — were incinerated.

The fire inspectors have recorded the fire as “accidental” but though the blaze began in the kitchen, kitchen workers have insisted “everything was turned off.” “2022 was a tense time in Tallahassee when a number of incidents at temples and places of Jewish worship were taking place. For now, we just don’t know,” says Mason Alexander, Director of Operations and Executive Assistant to Rabbi Schneur Oirechman.

Previous coverage: 'Dark times': Fire destroys Tallahassee Jewish center; cause of overnight blaze unclear

What Alexander does know, however, is that not only is the Chabad again up and functioning, but that long-term architectural plans for its eventual permanent rebuilding are in the early stages. He notes the expansive temporary quarters are providing a haven and study opportunities to FSU’s students in a 2,000 sq. ft. “quad-trailer” with a commercial kosher kitchen. The space currently serves as shul, dining hall, and recreational area for 50-100 students.

On Tuesday evening, all of the past trials were laid aside for what might be called a “birth” event. Even as, over a year ago, the remains of the burnt Torah scrolls had been placed in a clay vessel and wooden box and buried in the ground as a once-living person would have been, the celebration of a new Torah is a time of jubilation.

After an introduction at the Old Capitol to senators, representatives and the mayor, the Torah made its way back to the Chabad in an open truck in the care of a half-dozen men in black hats and back suits, singing and clapping beneath a chuppa, a bouncing cloth canopy.

Wrapped in gold-embroidered red velvet, the Torah wore a massive silver crown that jingled as 15-20 men circled the scrolls. Bearing torches, all bearded and dressed alike, they danced the Torah about the grass of the Chabad.

At the Capitol, dignitaries had had a chance to examine the Torah and meet its creator. Its 304,805 letters were hand-written by scribe Yisroel Chanowitz in Israel.

Having taken over a year to create in a traditional and holy atmosphere, the scroll’s production followed careful rules: made of parchment from a kosher animal; written with a special quill into hand-scratched lines; the pages sewn together with thread made from animal veins. While later, it would be wound on wooden rollers as the Torah must not touch steel or iron — seen as instruments of war.

Following prayers for Israel and its soldiers and sailors, and a welcoming proclamation from the mayor, it was time for festivities and refreshments — though most people at Chabad House preferred to dance.

As men sang and danced behind a carved screen, the children they carried on their shoulders squealed with delight. Indeed, all of the men laughed and twirled along with little boys in yarmulkes as they clapped and sang in a circle.

The women danced as well, holding one another’s hands on the other side of the room until a man carrying the Holy Scrolls called them over to “kiss the Torah.” Each woman laid a finger-kiss on the embroidered cover and one little girl puckered up and kissed it hard. “That’s right,” the man smiled. “The Torah is not just for men.”

And with that and thoughts for peace in Israel, everyone went back to dancing to welcome the new holy addition of the Chabad.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Chabad House of Tallahassee welcomes new hand-created Torah