Holy Rollers

So I’m involved in this group at my temple called Holy Rollers. We meet once a month on Sunday morning to heal our Torah scrolls. Healing involves cleaning the parchment, taking note of damage like holes, or tears, or pages that need to be re-sewn or patched, smoothing wrinkles, rolling the scrolls properly, and making sure that the letters of calligraphy are all intact and fixing them if we can. We log our progress in a journal and make note of what text is at the beginning of each klaf, or page, so that if we need to go back for further repair, we know where we left off without having to count from the beginning. The pages aren’t numbered like a regular book because the scroll is essentially one long piece created by sewing pages of parchment together. Some of the tools we use include a white eraser that can be bought at any office supply store, soft brushes to wipe away dust and eraser shreds, glue sticks, special thread for binding the pages, and tabs for patching tears or loose corners. We also use a tanach, a printed book of the torah in Hebrew and English, to help us translate and track where we are in the story.

The group was started this group after a Rabbi, who knows all about the Torah scrolls and how to take care of them, gave an instructional and informative session. He talked about the tools we use, the damage to look out for, the process of cleaning, and all kinds of other tidbits of information. (I heard he talked A LOT.) I missed that first lecture but my mom told me all about it and encouraged me to come to the first group meeting. At the meeting, after my mom recapped what the Rabbi had said and explained what we had to do, we got right down to business even though we were all really nervous and hesitant for our first time!

As children we’re taught not to touch the top of the parchment where the letters are because oils and dirt from our fingers will degrade or smudge the letters. We even have a special pointer for when we read from the scrolls to help you keep your place. The Torah is our holy heritage and is traditionally treated with a lot of respect. If you are Jewish and you receive the honor of carrying a Torah you feel an enormous amount of responsibility to keep it safe, like when you hold a newborn, because this is the holy text of our ancestors and you will one day pass it down to your descendants. That’s a lot of pressure! Don’t touch, don’t drop it, pass it on! So when we were told to put the eraser right on the page and rub off the dirt and dust, it went against all my instincts to keep my hands as far away as possible! I find the whole thing thrilling.

I’m sure all congregations who use a Torah scroll during ceremonies and services have a specific routine they use when removing the Torah from it’s special home in the sanctuary, and sing specific prayers, and do certain actions to make sure they don’t mess up. But outside of our rituals, interaction with the scrolls can feel a little strange at first, like it’s out of it’s element. I imagine it being like when you see someone famous at the grocery store and you realize they are a person just like you. The Torah is no less sacred and holy outside of services, but it is more obvious that it is an object with needs and it requires care. Actually though, we learned that the Torah scrolls are more durable than we think they are.

So each session goes something like this:

First, we symbolically wash our hands and say a blessing before we start and then unroll the scrolls, starting at the beginning, to about the length of the long table we work on. Each person takes a page to work on. Using the eraser, we gently remove the dirt and dust that has settled on the pages making the letters harder to read. Some scrolls have a white film painted on the back to make the parchment brighter, but this degrades over time and creates an awful haze over the letters. The brush helps dust of the little eraser crumbs and dust. It’s amazing what a difference it makes! My favorite part is helping keep track of what verse each page starts with. My mom will read the Hebrew and pick out key words or names and phrases and translate them so that I can find where we are. It’s really exciting when I can find the place in the Hebrew text and it makes me really proud of myself. I also really like writing down details of our progress in the journal. Our Rabbi hopes that I will get special training to be able to fix letters that are damaged. It makes sense to me! I am steady and confident with ink and have a good hand for calligraphy. I plan on doing some research into the topic.

So far, I really enjoy the process as well as getting together with my mom and friends in the congregation and participating in something so important.