Restore The Sifrei Torah
This is a finished project
We managed to raise 4500 USD to restore 2 scrolls in Jerusalem in 2012.
The Teleki Square Synagogue possesses 9 Sifrei Torah (Torah scrolls) that once belonged to this shul or to one of the neighboring shuls that chose to unite instead of closing down.
All scrolls are very old, some of them are more than 100 years old.
A functioning synagogue requires a minimum of 2 kosher Torah scrolls. Any letter missing, or smudged with age and the whole scroll loses its Kosher status. Tradition has it that there are 600 000 letters in the Torah, each letter corresponding to a person among the Israelites who travelled the desert with Moses. Just as the congregation of Israel are incomplete when a single person is missing so too is the Torah unusable, even when a single letter is missing .
At the start of the project, only a couple of them were in an acceptable condition to be used every Shabbat. A closer look from a sofer revealed problems which naturally showed, that even these scrolls were unkosher, hence unusable.
WITHOUT KOSHER SCROLLS THE SHUL CAN NOT GO ON FUNCTIONING.
We were raising founds till then, to have the two best scrolls checked and fixed.
We received (8 Sept 2010) an estimate offer from Micha Yerushalmi, an Israel based sofer who when living in Hungary visited our shul for shachrit services.
He estimated the cost to be approximately 6 000 USD.
To go on functioning, we had to save them.
We were “selling letters”, words, psukim (verses), and even parshas, and full books, to raise the needed amount of money for the reparation.
Finally we could raise enough money to get the first scroll (No. 1) restored. A major part of the money arrived from MAZSIHISZ, with the help of pres. dr. Péter Feldmájer. Other major donors contributed in the fund raising along with dozens of others, who bought sentances and/or letters.
We finally got the first renewed scroll back in Tu biSwat 5772, (7th Februar 2012) and finished it during a huge ceremony in the shul. Right after the ceremony the second scroll (No. 8.) was taken to Jerusalem to be repaired.
2 months after the first scroll, the second, (which was in a better condition) got finished at the Schwechat Airport near Vienna by the Bostoner Rebbe and Micha, the sofer, and the scroll arrived back home to Teleki tér accompanied by Rabbi Hurwitz.
Hereby we thank everybody again, who helped this holy cause, and we wish, that their certificates will remind them all their lives about this, of their good deeds.
