In a redwood house perched high amid the tall trees in Woodacre, a group of Jews gathered to honor a Torah scroll that came from a very different place.
Made and inscribed according to the laws of kashrut early in the 19th century in Sedicany, Czechoslovakia, the scroll was one of many Jewish artifacts confiscated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
More than 1,500 Bohemian and Moravian Torah scrolls were seized. This one was stashed in a warehouse adjacent to a Prague synagogue. It bore the number 1,265.
The scroll would not see the light of day again until 20 years later, when the contents of the warehouse were discovered and taken to England. In London, the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust was established to restore these Torahs if possible and make them available to Jews around the world.
That is how Torah scroll number 1,265 found its way to the Jewish Congregation of San Geronimo Valley. The congregation — which got its start when a group of Jewish neighbors began celebrating Shabbat at one another’s homes — has neither rabbi nor cantor.
“We are one of thousands of congregations” to have received one of the recovered scrolls, said Suzanne Sadowsky, congregation president, addressing those who were gathered for the Torah rededication July 5.
Soon after the congregation formed, members learned that the recovered scrolls might be available. They got in touch with the Scrolls Trust in London, which offered them a scroll on permanent loan.
After making a donation so that the trust could continue its work, the congregation began examining ways to have the scroll safely delivered.
Leon Cowen, the father of congregant Shelley Chadwick, is a resident of Manchester, England. As he was planning to visit his daughter in California for the High Holy Days, Cowen made it his mission to ensure that the Torah arrived safely in San Francisco.
En route from London to San Francisco, Cowen told the flight attendant, “This is the safest flight this plane has ever been on” — an allusion to his faith that God would ensure that the Torah reached its destination.
Congregant Daryl Grossman built an ark while congregant Virginia Levine sewed a silk velvet mantle and embroidered it with an image of the tree of life. Various families take turns keeping the Torah in their homes.
Time had not been kind to the Torah scroll, which still needed restoration when it reached West Marin. Sadowsky arranged for a Los Angeles scribe, Rabbi Shmuel Miller, to repair places where the text was illegible. After a close examination, Miller told Sadowsky it would be impossible to restore the text sufficiently for it to be considered kosher for use in religious services.
Nevertheless, he chemically cleaned it to help prevent further deterioration and restitched the parchment where it was coming apart.
When the scribe was finished, congregation board member Laurie Chorna hosted a special Shabbat celebration in her home to rededicate the scroll. Congregants gathered around as visiting Rabbi Elisheva Sachs stood over the scroll, which was carefully unrolled on Chorna’s dining room table. The rabbi recited the Shehecheyanu, the blessing for new things and beginnings:
“Praised are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, Who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this season.”
Despite the fact that its damaged text renders it unkosher for religious purposes, Sadowsky said the scroll still has special significance for the congregation.
“It’s a way of honoring all the generations of people who used it all the way to the people who succumbed to the Holocaust,” she said. “The scroll is a living witness to the history of the people and the synagogue for which it was originally commissioned — and ultimately, and tragically, to the community it served.”