New Torah, Without Fanfare

By COLlive reporter
Photos by Baruch Ezagui

The Rebbe’s Mazkir Rabbi Leibel Groner and a group of Lubavitchers attended a private event where the final letters were written in a new sefer Torah this past Wednesday.

Hosted by R’ Kalman Drimmer in his home in Flatbush, the 20 or so attendees were family members, old acquaintances and friends of his son R’ Shlomo Drimmer of Crown Heights, owner of AB Drimmer’s Home Appliances.

All present were honored with holding the feather dipped in black ink as the sofer, Rabbi Moshe Klein inscribed letters in the Alter Rebbe’s ksav writing.

The Torah, written in Israel, was dedicated to their late wife and mother, Mrs. Batya Drimmer, whose 5th yahrzeit is on 22 Tammuz.

Rabbi Groner, a former neighbor of R’ Kalman and Batya Drimmer when they lived in Crown Heights, shared some memories and led a farbrengen as participants sat down for a meal following the hakafos.

Joining them for the dancing was Rabbi Shmuel Fishbein, the elder rov of White Lake, New York, who came to Brooklyn especially for the event.

Explaining why a celebration did not continue into the streets with a larger crowd as regularly done, Shlomo Drimmer told COLlive some communities have a custom not to do so.

“My mother was from the Spinka chassidim and their minhag is not to dance in public,” he said. “The reason is that the first luchos were given with much fanfare and…we all know what happened, while the second ones were given b’tzinah – and lasted.”

It has yet to be determined where the Torah will remain permanently. Until then, Shlomo Drimmer brought it with him upstate this past Shabbos and used it for the davening he hosts at his summer home in White Lake, NY.