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March 4, 2005/Adar I 23 5765, Volume 57, No. 27
West Valley Torah
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Chabad of the West Valley started writing the West Valley Community Torah during a Feb. 20 ceremony at a Glendale elementary school.
It may be the first Valley Torah to be written west of the I-17 freeway, says Rabbi Sholom Lew, spiritual leader of the synagogue.
"This is a major accomplishment and is really needed here," Lew says. "The ultimate hope is that it will generate enough interest in the community-at-large (and show) that we are trying to develop a stronger and larger community."
Since the congregation began in 2000, it has used a Torah borrowed from Chabad of Phoenix, he says.
About 120 people attended the ceremony at Arrowhead Elementary School, and community members each had a chance to write one letter in the Torah, with assistance from Rabbi Levi Bialo, a scribe from Cleveland, Ohio.
Harvey Hirsch of Phoenix, who has attended Chabad of the West Valley since it opened, said he enjoyed learning about the Torah-making process, from how the parchment is made from a kosher animal to the specifics of how each letter must be written.
A separate children's program offered arts projects, including writing names with a feather quill and making edible Torah scrolls.
Sholom and Esther Laine of New York, renowned benefactors who assist many Jewish organizations, purchased the Torah, Lew says.
The Torah is expected to be finished by December.
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