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Membership and
Bulletin Information
Links
(Courtesy of Mendocino Coast Jewish Community)
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| This year we are celebrating our new Torah, the pride of Temple Bat Yam's "Once in a Lifetime" year-long fundraiser! As a congregation, we made our vision come alive, having a new Torah written for our congregation. We began the process last May, when Rabbi Shmuel Miller came to write the first word of our new Torah, "Bereshit" (In the beginning...). Throughout the year, the congregation focused on the meaning of Torah in many ways.
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| By May, 2001, our new Torah was complete. Siyyum haTorah, the dedication ceremony, began at Heavenly Ski Resort. To commemorate the receiving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai, members of the congregation proudly carried the new Torah from the "mountaintop" to its new home at Temple Bat Yam. It was awe-inspiring for various members of the congregation to carry the newly-scribed scroll through the tree-lined streets of South Lake Tahoe, accompanied by Klezmer music and singing.
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| Anticipation of our new Torah inspired several creative efforts during the year, one of which was a labor of love shared by many congregants: the wall behind the new Torah reflects our mountain and lake surroundings in natural slate, with the colors, textures, and patterns of our environment. We also commissioned a new ark for the Torah and its predecessor, a Holocaust Torah, which are now standing side-by-side, housed in a most exquisite fashion. The five-tiered cabinet represents the Five Books of Moses, the handles symbolize flames, with an inlayed Hebrew inscription from Psalm121: "I lift up my eyes to the mountains..."
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