Over 1,000 mourn and honor 12 destroyed Torahs
Over 1000 men, women and children filled the streets and plaza in front of the White Shul in Far Rockaway Sunday morning to hear eulogies and divrei Torah at a mass community wide funeral for 12 Torah scrolls severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
Judge Martin Ritholtz recalled the “tremendous simcha” of students who were called up for galilah (the honor of winding up the Torah scroll) from Maimonides School. This Torah was one of those packed in individual, large, barrel-like, Terra cotta containers draped with Tallitot, resting in gray plastic carts lined up beside the speakers.
Ritholtz drew a parallel between the erasure of much of the writing in these Torahs to the erasing of G-d’s name mentioned in the previous week’s Torah reading of sotah. Just as the erasure of the Name is used to bring shalom bayit, peace to a husband and wife riven by jealousy, “perhaps,” he theorized, this mass erasure is to bring “reconciliation between Knesset Yisrael and Hakodosh Baruch Hu. We must do acts of chesed (kindness),” he said.
Rabbi Yaakov Feitman, of Kehillas Bais Yehuda Tzvi, noted that King Achav, an evil king of the Israelite monarchy, was willing to surrender everything to an enemy but not the Torah. “Can we be any less?” he cried. He recounted Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin’s respect and defense of the sanctity of the Torah and of the “hundreds of thousands of korbanot that we gave up for the Sefer Torah.” He noted that the Nazis used the Torah parchment to line boots to desecrate the Torah. He called on listeners to give respect to the Torah, that “they are in front of us now” like a learned rabbi.
Noting that “suffering creates a climate of Teshuva (repentance),” Rabbi Jonathan Muskat of the Young Israel of Oceanside said that in times of “calamities and distress we should engage in introspection and soul searching” and that the suffering of Hurricane Sandy “actualized emunah (faith in G-d) and chesed (acts of kindness).” He said that there is “so much history behind every sefer Torah” and cited this as an “opportunity to improve our yirat Shamayim (fear of Heaven).”
“The Abishter (G-d) took 12 pieces and much more,” said Rabbi Eytan Feiner of the White Shul, “we have to see ourselves as burying a piece of ourselves, rachmane letzlan … Sandy brought out tremendous achdus (unity) … it’s time to unite, to share pain … Hashem sees Am Yisrael gather, Hashem comes down … Hashem will take care of Am Yisrael.” He stressed the importance of showing respect for the Torah, being quiet during the Torah reading, being close to the Torah and with each other. He expressed gratitude to the organizations that assembled this gathering and helped during the hurricane, “the unparalleled chesed,” and the need to love one another and respect the Torah and one another and that G-d should save us “from all tragedies.”
The mourners then walked respectfully behind the Torahs as they were wheeled on carts to three trucks. Four Torahs were loaded into each truck, into one of three large square wooden coffin-like open boxes, each Torah separated from the others by pieces of Styrofoam so the pottery cases wouldn’t break on the ride to burial in Liberty, New York.
