The Patchwork Torah
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
As a child, David watches his grandfather, a Torah scribe or sofer, finish a Torah scroll for the synagogue. "A Torah is not something to be thrown away," his Grandfather explains. David's grandfather carefully stores the old Torah his new one has replaced in his cabinet, hoping to one day repair the letters so the Torah can be used again.
David grows up and becomes a sofer just like his grandfather. Through the years, people bring him damaged Torahs they have saved from danger and disaster - one damaged by Nazi soldiers during World War II, one damaged in a fire in a synagogue, and one in flooding during Hurricane Katrina. David stores each of these precious Torahs in his cabinet, until his granddaughter Leah gives him the idea to make a recycled Torah from the salvaged Torah scrolls.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by tradition, deep faith, and an understanding that to "repair and reuse things" makes the world a better place, a sofer (the Hebrew word for a craftsman-scribe who transcribes sacred documents) takes pieces of four damaged Torah scrolls ravaged by old age, the Holocaust, fire, and Hurricane Katrina and creates a wonderful new Torah. Although Ofanansky's (Harvest of Light) prose and Oriol's acrylic and gouache vignettes strike a thoughtful, serious mood (as befits a story about an intensely spiritual labor of love), an unmistakable momentum and sense of suspense build as one by one the stories of the rescued Torahs are told, and the scrolls are put into a special cabinet for a yet-to-be-determined future. David, the hero, starts out as boy learning the art of the sofer from his grandfather during World War II, and ends as a grandfather himself in a joyous present-day Simchat Torah celebration, carrying his patchwork Torah as his young granddaughter "walked proudly alongside him." Surprisingly inventive and genuinely uplifting, this story beautifully and subtly ties together two key Jewish precepts: l'dor v'dor (generation to generation) and tikkum olam (repair the world). Ages 4-8.
