Saving Torah scrolls from flaming synagogues: "A piece of history held in trembling hands."

But have you ever seen a single photo of the Ten Commandments being rescued from the burning flames of a synagogue? The answer is no. And here's why that matters.

On Wednesday of this week, as the flames engulfed the hills and valleys of Los Angeles, I heard the awful news of the complete destruction of the Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center, a synagogue with a hundred years of history and a vibrant congregation of 430 families.

I have an acquaintance who is active there and wanted to reach out to him. It’s such a helpless feeling to be a continent away from this kind of disaster, and the sight of a burning synagogue triggers deep anguish in the heart of any Jew. So, I dashed off a note.

He replied within a few hours with a very Jewish response.

Thanks so much for reaching out, your kind words and support are greatly appreciated. Fortunately, no one was injured at the synagogue and all the Torah scrolls were saved. At the same time, many in the community have been displaced and more than a few have lost homes.

The two most important bits of information imparted were given in order of their significance:

1. No one was injured in the building.

2. The Torah scrolls were saved.

The rescue of those Torahs was a dramatic scene, described by Binyamin Cohen of the Forward:

Cantor Ruth Berman Harris searched for her husband through the thick smoke that engulfed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. Laurence Harris had been beside her just moments before, but now, as flames closed in and the air grew heavier, he was nowhere in sight.

“Do you have the Torahs?” she shouted, her voice slicing through the chaos, trying to find him amid the suffocating darkness.

And then, there he was. Emerging through the smoke, almost surreal in his calm, carrying one of the synagogue’s 13 Torahs — a Sephardic scroll, heavier than the rest, encased in silver etched with the patterns of a long-lost homeland. It had been donated by a congregant who fled Iran, a piece of history held in trembling hands.

For a Jew, even one with a very limited Jewish education, there is something about the sanctity of a Torah scroll that is visceral - it hits us at the deepest, gut level. The Torah is treated similarly to a human being. We kiss it, we hug it, we dance with it, we bury it when it is no longer viable. We never burn one.

In some ways, we care for it even more than for a human. When a Torah scroll is dropped, it is customary to fast for 40 days (although there is scant textual support for that practice). Once when it happened in my congregation, we designated 40 different people to fast for one day each. And there is no similar consequence ordained for dropping a person (aside from, say, arrest by Child Protective Services). So in some ways the Torah is in a class by itself in the pecking order of sacred phenomena.

This photo from Chabad of Palisades is something we would expect to see whenever and wherever a synagogue is aflame.

Regrettably, this not an unusual occurrence. Just Google “saving Torah scrolls from fire” and you’ll see an endless parade of stories of heroism from all over the world, people risking their lives to save an inanimate object that is really much more.

Yad Vashem

This Torah scroll (above) from the Broder synagogue, Leipzig, Germany, was saved from destruction in the Kristallnacht pogrom and hidden in the attic of the city’s university library until its discovery during renovations - in 1998! Read the fantastic story of this Torah’s rediscovery, at the Yad Vashem website.

As for the Broder synagogue, it was completely destroyed on Kristallnacht, though not set aflame so as to protect the homes of the neighbors - not out of any regard for Jews. In some ways, it would have been better for it to have bene consumed by fire. According to the website dedicated to memorializing those synagogues destroyed on Kristallnacht (Nov. 9-10, 1938) , “In early 1939, the Nazis, wanting to convince the world of their tolerance, forced the Jewish community to refurbish the synagogue in time for the upcoming Leipzig fair. Shortly afterwards, they repossessed the building and used it as a soap factory.”

A soap factory.

But at least one Torah scroll was saved.

Click here to see another story of a Torah scroll saved on the Night of Broken Glass and Burning Pews, this one in Hamburg.

---

OK, that was a long windup. So here’s my question.

Have you ever seen a single photo of the Ten Commandments being rescued from the burning flames from a synagogue - or any building? In L.A.? Anywhere? Ever?

The answer is, of course, no.

It’s not as if the Ten Commandments are meaningless to Jews. But they are just a small part of a larger whole, the Torah, which is equal to far more than the sum of its parts.

When you see artwork of Jews reading from the Tablets - like this…

…these lovely scenes were without question the creation of non-Jews. The only exception would be depictions of Moses, who brought the actual Tabs down from the mountain but also destroyed his first set. No one else would be reading from them. They were stashed away in the ark, waiting for Harrison Ford to discover them.

A Jewish artist would never depict Ezra reading the “Law” from two tablets. And further, Gustave Doré, the non-Jewish artist in question here, famously produced 12 folio-size illustrations of The Legend of The Wandering Jew in 1856, which promoted antisemitic views.

---

The Louisiana Circus

On Wednesday, an amicus brief filed in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit by the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) and cosigned by about 20 other groups representing several other faith traditions (mostly Jewish), asserted that the Louisiana law mandating that a poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments be permanently hung in every public school classroom violates religious freedom.

You can read the brief here¹.

Here’s an excerpt:

Contrary to the Founders’ intent, H.B. 71 would put the government in the position of favoring certain religious traditions over others. Although the Ten Commandments have historical significance, they are, at heart, a religious text with different meanings, interpretations, and significance across different faiths, including within and among faiths within the Jewish and Christian traditions.

Differences among religious faiths in how the Commandments are worded, and which text is included, represent meaningful and important elements of the religious beliefs of several faiths. H.B. 71, however, would privilege the language for the Ten Commandments observed by some Protestant Christians, which is not shared within Jewish or even certain other Christian denominations.

Kentucky and 17 other states are backing Louisiana in its appeal of a ruling that struck down a law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments.

It’s the Red States against the Blue and White. Rarely have Jews taken on Christian nationalism so directly. Progressive Jewish groups are taking on some major political players here, and there’s a reason.

The amicus brief shows that the goal is to impose “majoritarian religious values.”

H.B. 71’s legislative history and surrounding messaging appear to confirm the concern that it was animated at least in substantial part by a desire to encourage and promote a specific set of religious beliefs among Louisiana’s schoolchildren. As the district court pointed out, this is not “a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum....” Rather, Louisiana has mandated the posting of the Commandments because of their religious—not educational— significance. The continuous and ubiquitous display, which places the Commandments in front of every student, all day long, including when they are studying entirely unrelated subjects, communicates that schools are adopting and endorsing the Commandments as rules to follow, rather than as a subject to learn about.

Indeed, H.B. 71’s legislative history makes clear that its proponents intended to use it as a vehicle to establish what its proponents viewed as a “Judeo-Christian” worldview. Representative Dodie Horton, the bill’s primary author and sponsor, argued that “It is so important that our children learn what God says is right and what He says is wrong....” Her co-sponsor, Sylvia Taylor, agreed, saying, “I really believe that we are lacking in direction. A lot of people . . . are not attending churches . . . [so] we need to do something in the schools to bring people back to where they need to be.”

Moreover, Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana, sent a fundraising email urging supporters to help “the Judeo- Christian values that this nation was built upon.” Patrick Wall, Jeff Landry Vows to Defend ‘Judeo-Christian Values’ After Ten Commandments Lawsuit, Times-Picayune (June 25, 2024), https://www. nola.com/news/politics/jeff-landry-lawsuit-ten-commandments-judeo-christian/article_0555d6e6-3314-11ef-863e-1b07594ff87c.html.

When Landry signed the law, he called Moses the “original lawgiver.” Evidence suggesting that the driving factor behind H.B. 71 was, in fact, to impose majoritarian religious values, makes it all the more offensive to our nation’s Founding values.

I have nothing against the Ten Commandments, but not a single Jew - and I would venture to guess that not a single Christian - would run into a burning building to save a framed poster of a couple of mass-produced fake tablets. It’s an insult to my religion to force us to act as if anything other than our Torah is being presented as the paradigm for sanctity - all the more in the name of “Judeo-Christian Values.”

The fetishization of the image of the Commandments is, ironically, a form of idolatry, which is explicitly prohibited in those very commandments.

For Jews, the Big Ten are just the appetizers. Our tradition has many more that are of equal or even greater significance than the Big Ten. Would Louisiana like to display all 613 in their classrooms, including the one that allows for leniency on abortion?

See the entire list of 613 here, and send it to your favorite Red State attorney general.

Or maybe the key is to use this legislation as a springboard for the promotion of religious pluralism. Instead of fetishizing those dusty tablets with the Roman numerals, why not display versions of the commandments found in different faiths?

No one ever claimed that "our" Ten Commandments are unique; if you search online, you'll find lots of different versions. In this packet that I put together celebrating the Ten Commandments, I compare and contrast the "Big Ten" as they are presented by major world religions.

• Did you know that for Hindus, the "tenfold law" as they call it, includes self control, forgiveness, wisdom and abstention from anger?

• Buddhists include not merely killing, stealing and coveting wives, but also refraining from "divisive, harsh and senseless speech." Imagine planting two tablets containing that on a courtroom lawn!

• For the Sikhs it is a sin to argue with your parent.

• An African proverb states, "If a parent takes care of you up to the time you cut your teeth, you need to take care of them when they lose theirs."

• Islam vociferously condemns the murder of innocents

• …and Confucianism states, "No crime is greater than having too many desires."

Contrast and compare the Jewish Big Ten and all the others.

And then let's post them all, side by side.

Just not in public school classrooms. ²

See the full article here: A synagogue minutes from my home was set ablaze. This is why many Jewish Australians live in fear

In December, the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne was set aflame, not by an act of nature but in an apparent act of hate. The Torah scrolls were saved and they were meticulously restored³.

Let the images of people preserving these sacred scrolls inspire us to preserve religious values and remind us to live hallowed lives. We don’t need any state-mandated tsotchkes on the classroom wall to show us what religious values are all about.

1. Signatories include Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., Hindus for Human Rights, Interfaith Alliance, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Jewish Women International, Keshet, Men of Reform Judaism, Muslims for Progressive Values, Rabbinical Assembly, Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, The Sikh Coalition, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Women’s Rabbinic Network, T’ruah, Union for Reform Judaism, Women of Reform Judaism, and Zionness.

2. Click to see this Jewish backgrounder on the Ten Commandments in the Public Square

3. See this article: