My Grandmother’s Sefer Torah

By Rabbi Eli Hecht, Director of Chabad of South Bay in Lomita, CA

This month we had some nice things happen at our Chabad. It all started a few months ago when we realized that our old Sefer Torah was just so full of problems that we decided to retire it and stop using it. We have two newer Sefer Torahs which are in very good shape. We had used the older Sefer Torah for years, until some people gifted money to write the new ones.

Then the following happened: Mr. Scott Hess, our loyal Gabbi, said “I am going to have the old Torah fixed and no matter the cost I will make sure that it will be done.”

The scribe said that the Torah has a special flair, something special, but he could not put his finger on it. He wondered where the Torah had come from.

As Rabbi, and founder of Chabad of South Bay, I knew where the Sefer Torah came from. I waited to see if Scott could muster up the funds needed to fix all the flaws of the faded ink and tears in the parchment. The plan was to get as many people as possible to donate the money, and, lo and behold, it happened. Money was collected and The Torah, Boruch Hashem, was fixed.

The first Shabbos after the holy Torah was returned we used it for the Shabbos Torah reading. The week after we used it a wonderful thing happened, Scott and Danielle Hess’ daughter became engaged to Mendel Bryski from Chabad of Agoura. It was like the Hess family gave a Torah life so they were granted with a new generation to be.

Now where did this Torah come from?

My grandparents left Europe after my grandfather Boruch Greenhut was beaten by the Gestapo for keeping his beard and Chassidic garments.

Having family, they received a visa to come to America. My Uma, grandmother, would not leave unless her family could take a Sefer Torah with them. So Uma arrived in America holding the Torah, and Upa, my grandfather, his ritual knife he used for shechita.

They brought the old traditions with them to replant in a cold, cold America. They would not live with another American family as they were too modern and Americanized, so they settled on the Jewish East Side. Upa became a chazzan and then became a Shochet, and introduced Glatt Kosher meat to America. He did all this while he kept the Holy Torah with him and took it from shul to shul, and wherever he traveled.

When I was born, he made sure that I would carry the name of his father, Eliyahu, and live in his home. This would guarantee that I carry his father’s name with religious fervor. I lived by them for 3 years.

Then I moved on, years went by and in 1973, before the Yom Kippur war, the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent me to South Bay, California. It was truly an unknown goyishe area. I told my Uma that I needed a Sefer Torah to help bring Yiddishkiet to this California world. So that Sefer Torah has been with me and Chabad for the past 40 years. The Sefer Torah is over 100 years old.

May we all be blessed with goodness and may the young couple build a bayis neaman B’Yisroel.