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Cleveland Jewish News

Hundreds gathered to Fromovitz Chabad Center in Beachwood to attend the completion of its new Torah Aug. 29.

Along with witnessing the final lines of the Torah, those present enjoyed food, music and games to celebrate the Torah’s finishing.

The new scroll was dedicated to Chabad by Sharona Grunspan and her family in memory of her late parents, Shlomo Yitzchok and Ida Fromovitz, and her late husband, Will Grunspan.

Receiving its first Torah was no small feat to Rabbi Moshe Gancz, who leads Fromovitz Chabad Center with his wife, Rivky. All 304,805 letters of the Torah were hand written over a number of months by a qualified sofer, or scribe, per long-standing tradition within Judaism.

“It’s an unbelievable, emotional moment where really this becomes the Torah,” Gancz said during the event. “We will read this Torah here every week. A Torah that in the same manner has been written for 3,333 years, a continuous link and continuous shape that keeps going, keeps giving and keeps inspiring millions of us.”

Sofer Dovid Lipschitz of Pittsburgh penned in the Torah’s remaining lines during the event.

Those who donated over $500 to the event initiative had the ability to help scribe some of the final letters on the scroll. Those who donated over $770 were listed on the dedication wall.

Once the final words dried, the scroll was rolled for the first time and then paraded under a chuppah canopy around Chabad. From under the chuppah, different people took turns holding it up as other attendees danced and sang to live music.

Those present then enjoyed a feast and traditional hakafot around the new Torah.

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