Rabbi from Florida repairs torah scrolls in Ohio
AKRON, Ohio - Doodling in class can be a good thing. Just ask Rabbi Menachem Bialo.
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"One summer, when I was 18 years old and in rabbinical school in South Beach (Fla.), I was doodling Hebrew letters and one of my classmates walked by and said 'oh, so you're a scribe?' I said 'no.' He said that I should be and that he wanted to introduce me to a torah scribe who lived around the block from him," said Bialo, 26.
And so began the Beachwood native's journey on the road to becoming a sofer, a Jewish scribe who can transcribe torah scrolls and other religious writings.
Bialo, who works for North Miami Beach-based Sofer On Site, spent a recent week at Beth El Congregation, restoring three torah scrolls.
His work at the West Akron synagogue began more than six months ago, when he evaluated 10 scrolls, carefully inspecting the 304,805 handwritten Hebrew letters in each of them.
The local congregation hired Bialo to restore three of the scrolls so they can be used once again at the synagogue.
"The torah is our most precious possession, and we treat it with the deepest sense of holiness," said Rabbi Stephen Grundfast of Beth El. "It's the centerpiece of the synagogue, but if one letter is missing, if there is one little defect, it's not kosher and it can't be used."
Grundfast said torah scrolls are checked periodically to make sure the wear and tear of regular use hasn't rendered them unusable. If a defect is detected while a torah is being read, the service must be stopped, the torah rolled up, put away and replaced with a new one, he said.
Torah scrolls, which contain the five books of Moses, are kept in a cabinet called an ark. They always are handwritten in Hebrew calligraphy with "crowns" on many of the letters. The crowns are crows-foot-like marks coming from the upper points of the letters.
The scrolls can cost $20,000 to $60,000 or more, depending on the quality. Repair costs can range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the amount of work that has to be done.
Bialo spent an average of 12 hours a day at Beth El, using a turkey feather dipped in kosher ink to restore the faded, flaking, chipped and cracked letters on the parchment made of cow skin.
Every four or five letters, he dipped the quill into the ink. Every 30 minutes, he looked up from his task and out the window to limit the strain on his eyes.
As a scribe, his t
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