TORAH IN PROGRESS …
NSCI history is in the making as our scribe, Linda Coppleson, continues to make progress on the writing of our new Torah scroll. 
We look forward to welcoming her back to NSCI for Torah writing sessions and teaching on September 22–23, November 17–18, 2024, and February 23–24 and April 27–28 of 2025. If you haven’t yet had the chance to participate, now is the time! With sponsorships beginning at just $36, we hope that every congregant will join in this sacred task. There are still time slots available to accompany Linda during Torah writing sessions on her next visits to NSCI. This is a meaningful opportunity to make a dedication in honor of a b’nei mitzvah, wedding, new baby, conversion, or other family milestone.
Check out the video below to see soferet (scribe) Linda B. Coppleson writing the first word of the Torah alongside consecration and thanking the Goodman Center for Jewish Education’s Machoniks and teachers. Stay tuned for new opportunities to engage with Torah.
TORAH IS FOR ALL OF US
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The experience was so moving. It was quiet and I was able to reflect as the scribe wrote in our Torah. As I pass the Torah onto my children and grandchildren I know la-dor va-dor is scribed in the Torah of my family. I dedicated this in memory of my parents. Watching this there was a connection to NSCI as this will be here forever. May this new Torah bring peace. |
This is just one of many meaningful congregant reflections after accompanying our scribe in writing NSCI’s new Torah scroll. Letter by Letter is a chance for every member of our NSCI community to learn, grow, and connect to the Torah. Over the course of the project, there will be many ways to embrace and deepen your relationship with the Torah. Please know that helping to write a letter is for everyone. Join us!
“Each of us recognizes that the Torah is not just an ancient relic of history, but rather the living thread connecting the entirety of the Jewish people and those who love them through space and time. … By helping to write a letter of Torah, we will bring ourselves to the Torah and in doing so, bring the Torah to the next generation and
even the next century of our congregation.”
—Rabbi Wendi Geffen
“Our tradition speaks of Torah being ‘black fire on white fire.’ The black fire represents the letters themselves and the white fire represents all the space in and around the letters. One way to think about this tradition is that Torah and its ongoing revelation relies on the engagement of each of us adding to the collective understanding of the text through our individual letters, words, paragraphs, and stories. We might never understand all of Torah, but we certainly can bring our whole selves to it.”
—Cantor David Goldstein
"When we bring our lives to Torah and Torah to our lives, we deepen the meaning of our sacred story and connectedness to the generations that came before us."
—Rabbi Lisa Greene
“It is an extraordinary privilege to be a part of the new Torah project at NSCI. Some of my most cherished moments have been around the Torah: chanting from Torah the Shabbat before my wedding, giving Torah blessing honors to my family, and becoming a rabbi before the open ark. I am so excited to help foster these and other formative sacred moments in this community, especially with the new Torah, letter by letter, word by word, verse by verse, and beyond.”
—Rabbi Jacob Leizman
