Congregation rededicates Torah during Hanukkah celebration

The nearly century-old scroll, which contains the law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, was sent to a rabbi in New York two months ago for restoration.

The 100-foot long, 40-pound scroll of parchment was brought to the United States from Russia in the early 1900s by the great-grandfather of Marcia Louchheim, wife of Congregation Or Chadash Rabbi Thomas Louchheim.

The return of the St. Joseph Torah Scroll, hand-inked in Hebrew, will be a highlight of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration.

“One of the themes of Hanukkah was rededication after the Macabees defeated the Greeks,” said Emily Joseph, a member of the congregation’s board of directors. The Macabees “found the temple in Jerusalem was defiled and one of the things they did was restore it to ritual use and rededicate it. By rededicating the scroll, it kind of fits the theme.”

Congregation Or Chadash brought the St. Joseph Torah Scroll to Tucson from Missouri in 1995.

Marcia Louchheim’s great-grandfather, Rabbi Joshua Frumhoff, brought the scroll with him when he and his family emigrated to the U.S. and settled in St. Joseph, Mo.

The scroll is unusual, Louchheim said, in that it is written by more than one scribe.

“As pieces wore out, they took pieces from other Torah scrolls and had a scribe put them together,” she said. “It is a patchwork, which is kind of interesting. They kind of knitted everything together.”

The scroll belonged to the B’nai Yakov Synagogue, which later merged with another Orthodox congregation to form B’nai Sholem, Louchheim said.

When Congregation Or Chadash was founded in 1995 and needed a Torah, Louchheim’s uncle facilitated the transfer of the scroll from the Missouri congregation to Tucson.

“The congregation it belonged to was an Orthodox congregation, which over the decades had become very elderly, and they simply couldn’t use the scroll. It was too heavy to lift out of the ark — the cabinet where it was kept — and they decided to pass it on to us because we were a young congregation with young families,” Joseph said. “It’s meant to be alive. It’s meant be used, not just sit in an ark for decades.”

For the 10 years, it was the only scroll the Foothills congregation had, so it was read from weekly.

“Most synagogues have more than one scroll so they take turns based on how old they are and that kind of thing. Nowadays, since we have some other scrolls that are smaller and easier to use, it’s read from a few times a year. It’s brought out for special occasions,” Joseph said.

Although the scroll will be rededicated Friday, it won’t be used until next year. In order to ship the scroll to New York for repair it had to be cut from its rollers. Otherwise it would have been too cumbersome, Joseph said. The rabbi who repaired it will come to Tucson in late December or early January to sew the parchment back onto the scrolls.