NEW TORAH STORY AND VIDEO IN THE GAZETTE

You can read the whole story and see the video at:
http://www.gazette.net/stories/03242010/gaitnew192508_32549.php

Story:

Elisa Linowes picked up a turkey quill to write on holy scrolls her synagogue will use for generations.

"It's neat that it will be here for many years," the Germantown resident said. "Who knows? Maybe if our kids get married and they have children and they stay in the community and continue educating their children in our synagogue, they will have the opportunity to read from a Torah that we've actually helped [to write]."

Linowes, her husband, Richard, and her four children worship at Kehilat Shalom Synagogue on Apple Ridge Road in Montgomery Village. The synagogue's leaders started The Torah Project to raise funds and help build community while fulfilling a holy commandment. The Torah, or Jewish sacred text, includes 613 mitzvah, or commandments, one of which calls on Jews to write a Torah during their lifetime.

"Torah is the wellspring of Jewish life," Rabbi Mark Raphael said. "On some levels, we believe that it is God's words to us. And we search it and we interpret it for insights to how to live a good life."

In October, Kehilat Shalom commissioned a scribe, or sofer, in Israel to write a new Torah for the synagogue, an effort that costs between $40,000 and $50,000, said Carrie Ettinger, a congregant helping to manage The Torah Project. The Torah is written with more than 304,000 letters and the scribe left open almost 2,000 letters for congregants and their extended families to fill in.

Officials are still taking pledges, with plans to cover costs of the Torah and raise additional funds for Torah repairs and educational programs, Judith Kranz, executive director of the synagogue, said. Families or individuals can sponsor a word, a letter, a line or a verse. Donations range from $18 for a word to as much as $1,000 for a passage, or parcha.

The full Torah includes 62 panels and will not arrive in Montgomery Village until September, Kranz said. Congregants are now helping to complete two panels, the first and the last of the sacred scrolls.

This Torah is the fourth Raphael will dedicate in his life, and it is unique, he said. The previous three were refurbished; this is the first Torah the 57-year-old will write in.

The year-long project will be completed at a Sept. 26 dedication ceremony during the holiday of Sukkot, and officials hope that all 267 families who worship at the synagogue will write in the Torah, Ettinger said. So far about 75 families have participated, Kranz said.

Rabbi Menachem Youlus is leading monthly educational programs on the Torah, which is written on special parchment, Ettinger said. Writers use a turkey feather quill, special ink and special fonts.

"They don't use anything with metal because metal is used to create weapons," she said.

The new Torah is expected to last several hundred years, Linowes said.

"We have spent our life raising our children and doing Shabbat and doing these rituals, so now here is something that we are doing together as a family in public to create for the community," Linowes said. "This is something that is in front of the community, but it's also for the community. It's not a self-focused thing. It's outward."

Her son, Jeremy, 14, who made his bar mitzvah at the synagogue, daughter Dahlia, 9, and son Nathan, 8, joined her and Richard on March 14 to write in the Torah. Daughter Selia, 16, was out of town.

To participate, contact Kehilat Shalom Synagogue at 9915 Apple Ridge Road, Gaithersburg, MD 20886 or 301-869-7699. Educational programs are set for Sunday, April 11 and Sunday, May 16.