Last Wednesday morning in Williston Park, an animated procession of upper school students from the Schechter Day School of Nassau County and eighth graders from the nearby St. Aidan School followed members of the local Jewish community who carried a new Torah on its way to being dedicated at the Schechter School.
Those in the procession sang “Shalom Aleichem” ( “Peace to You”), a traditional song for Shabbat services.
Some also danced as the Torah was carried under a huppah – a sacred canopy – a short distance down Willis Avenue, then east on Winthrop Street and then south onto Cross Street and into the Schechter School.
“It was a great opportunity to share part of our culture with the community,” said Cindy Dolgin, Schechter head of school. “We as Jews and Christians both consider this to be a holy text. We as Jews consider it to be the holiest text.”
A week before the dedication day, Dolgin contacted Eileen Oliver, principal of the St. Aidan School, to let her know about the celebration.
The two religious schools have established a relationship over the past two years since the Schechter School started leasing the former Cross Street School, with students from both schools participating in a Thanksgiving observance and a seder for Passover.
Dolgin and Oliver agreed it would be good for the St. Aidan eighth graders to participate in the Torah celebration, which continued with dancing inside the school.
“It’s a dream come true. They were dancing the horah,” Dolgin said.
Father Kevin Dillon of St. Aidan Church, who participated in the procession, called the occasion a “celebration” of the first five books the Bible that comprise the Torah.
“The Jewish people have great reverence for that and so do we,” Dillon said.
It was a special day for Schechter, which Dolgin said had needed a fourth Torah for its religious studies.
And it was a special Torah, commissioned by Mansour and Mahvash Zarabi, immigrants from Iran who wanted to show appreciation to the school for educating three of their children through 6th grade years.
“We were very excited that we got some education for our kids and we like to give something back,” Mahvash Zarabi said. “I’m so glad that we are the lucky ones that we can do it.”
Her husband, Mansour, had first heard about Schechter’s need at a board of directors meeting of Temple Beth Shalom in Roslyn Heights last year. When their son Joshua, who attended the Schechter School in Glen Cove, became engaged to marry Jennifer Ehrlich, who had attended the Schechter School through fourth grade, it triggered their decision to donate the Torah to Schechter.
“We always wanted to get a Torah and give it to someone who could use it,” Mahvash Zarabi said.
They commissioned the Torah to be written by a sofer – a Torah caligrapher – in Israel last year, in advance of their son’s marriage on March 9 this year. She said they donated the Torah to honor their children and their four grandchildren. The huppah the Torah was carried under was the same one used in their son’s marriage ceremony.
She said she thoroughly enjoyed the interfaith participation in the Sept. 25 of the Torah dedication ceremony.
“It was so wonderful to see the whole community. It doesn’t matter Christian, Jewish or Muslim, to come out and celebrate,” Zarabi said.
Dolgin said the Zarabi’s desire to donate the Torah was “quite serendipitous” since Schechter needed a new one.
The Schechter upper school in Williston Park had borrowed a Torah from Tifferet Israel in Glen Cove, but its wooden rollers broke and it needed repair, Dolgin said. Schechter uses four Torahs so that classes in the school can simultaneously read from the sacred scrolls in classes twice weekly.
Transcribing a new Torah takes months for a sofer to complete, since it is written on stretch sheepskin parchment with a turkey quill and must be done without any mistakes.
The new Schechter Torah was deliberately left incomplete, with the last 42 letters from the book of Deuteronomy deliberately left out. They were filled in by the brother of the sofer who wrote the rest of the text in Hebrew at the lower school Schechter School campus in Jericho with the support of donors on the Sunday preceding the Torah dedication.
“It’s something you usually don’t get to see, to see the Torah being written,” Dolgin said.
It is certainly the first time a Torah procession has been held in Williston Park, and with Christians and Muslims participating. Dolgin said Habeeb Ahmed, vice president of the Islamic Center of LI in Westbury and co-commissioner of the Nassau County Human Rights Commission – brought greetings from the imam of the center, Haziz Mohammed Ahmad, who could not attend.
Village of Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar and state Sen. Jack Martins also participated in the Torah celebration.
“It was both enlightening and enjoyable,” Ehrbar said. “The fact that they invited St. Aidan is a good way of reaching out to the community.”
“Every time a Torah is created, it’s like creating a human being,” said Arthur Katz, president of Jewish Community Relations Council of Long Island, during the procession. “It is a very important document because it tells us where we’re from and how to live today.”
