The Shul's Newest Torah

Sobolnitsky then told the rabbi the emotional story of his family and the Torah’s travels to the United States.

The Torah came to Sobolnitsky through his late father, Daniel. During the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Daniel Sobolnitsky was part of the evacuation of the Jewish community of Priluki. During the exodus, some of the town’s Torah scrolls were hidden in walls and fields and any place where they might be found later. With the German retreat, Daniel Sobolnitsky returned to Priluki, once home to 20,000 Jews, to find the town and its synagogue destroyed.

“The Jewish people who returned wanted to make a shul,” said Vladimir Sobolnitsky, now of Waterford. “I was only 4 or 5, but I remember my father told me that he and others went from house to house and found 10 Torahs that had been hidden.”

Their discovery is just the beginning of a long, long journey for the Torah that this Yom Kippur will be read in the sanctuary of the Shul.

Brilliant And Bold

“When Khrushchev came to power in 1955, the Russian government ordered all synagogues closed, including the only synagogue in our city,” Sobolnitsky said.

The town’s 10 Torahs were to be taken to government storage.

“That’s when Vladimir’s father and other members of the community came up with a daring plan,” Rabbi Shemtov said. “They took four of the Torahs and removed half of each one before giving them to the government, who never realized they didn’t get complete Torahs.” From the four remaining parts, the group created two complete Torahs that were hidden and used by the Jewish community there.

A couple of years later, Daniel Sobolnitsky received a call from a Jewish woman he knew who was working in the government storage house. “She told him the roof was leaking and the rain was getting on the Torahs,” Vladimir Sobolnitsky said. “She knew the government didn’t care about having the Torahs, but that my father did. She gave him one of the Torahs to keep it safe in his home. That is the Torah that was later in my home and is now at the Shul.”

It turned out others also had Torahs in their homes in the Ukraine, acquired from various sources and hidden from the government. “They took turns using their houses like a synagogue,” Sobolnitsky said. “They didn’t want to go to the same house every Saturday or the government would know there was a Torah there.”

Coming To America

In 1985, seven years after Vladimir Sobolnitsky moved to the United States, he made his one and only trip back to the former Soviet Union. His father, still living in the Ukraine, met him at his brother’s home in Leningrad.

“That’s when my father told me he still had the Torah that used to be used in his house,” Sobolnitsky said. “He brought it with him to Leningrad. He said there was nobody left for a minyan, and he wanted me to bring it to the United States for people to use it.”

Getting the Torah back to Michigan was a bit more complicated than Sobolnitsky anticipated.

“Some people who knew I had the Torah told me, ‘Don’t try to take it to America,’” he said. “But I went to the customs department anyway. They told me to go to a special department the next day.”

When he arrived, he was told the Torah could not leave Russia, because it was the property of the government. “When I said it is private property, they told me they needed to make a call to Moscow and that I should come back again the next day,” he said.

When he returned, he was given the word: He could take the Torah to the United States if he paid 1,000 rubles, which then was about $250 American dollars.

“I didn’t have that much money with me on my trip,” Sobolnitsky said. “But I said OK. I would have said OK even if it were $2,000 or $3,000. I was able to borrow the money and took it to the airport.” When he got there, his baggage was opened, and either airport staff didn’t know what the Torah was — or they didn’t care — but told him to go ahead with it, without a charge.

“I was a little nervous then because I already filled out a declaration saying I was traveling with no rubles, but suddenly I had 1,000 rubles with me,” Sobolnitsky said. “There was no place to put it, so I had to take the money home. Then I sent it back to the person I borrowed it from in Russia.”

Afraid to risk sending it all in the same envelope, he mailed it a little bit at a time.

Now What?

Once the Torah was in the United States, Sobolnitsky began to try to figure out what to do with it. “My father told me to make sure the Torah is kosher and can be used,” he said. “But people told me it would cost $5,000 for someone to make sure it was, and to fix it, so I kept it in my home for the next 17 years until I met with Rabbi Shemtov.”

During those years, Sobolnitsky’s father immigrated to the Detroit area and was a constant reminder to him of the unused Torah.

“He came here when he was 85 and stayed until he died 10 years later,” Vladimir Sobolnitsky said. “He went to shul every day in the morning and the evening. When he couldn’t go by himself, people took him.”

In 2000, Vladimir Sobolnitsky learned about the opening of the Shul-Chabad Lubavitch. After a couple of years of attending services, he decided that even though the Torah was not usable and was in need of repairs it should be in a synagogue, not in his home. Then he made the call to Rabbi Shemtov, who moved the Torah to the synagogue.

Making It Kosher

That’s where Shul members Robin and Howard Schwartz of West Bloomfield come in.

“I went to see the Torah, and it was slumped over in the back of the ark, with a little handmade velvet cloth over it. It reminded me of a hurt, broken child sitting there,” Howard Schwartz said.

Immediately, he made plans to have the Torah restored so it could be used.

“I drove it to [scribe] Rabbi Levi Kagan, with a seatbelt strapped around it,” Schwartz said. “I had no idea how thrilling it would be to see the Torah until Rabbi Kagan opened it. We sat and looked at it together.”

Then Rabbi Kagan took over and began checking and restoring the Torah to its kosher and usable state.

“The Torah is unique in that the letters were hardly faded,” said Rabbi Kagan of Oak Park. “Usually, a Torah’s letters start fading at about 50 years, but this one was made with strong ink and still had dark letters at almost 100 years.”

The major work that needed to be done involved the type of lettering.

“The handwriting wasn’t that great,” he said. “I especially went over the certain letters that should be either flat or curved on the bottom making 100 percent sure they are right.”

In addition to the restoration needed on the Torah scroll, there was damage to the atzai chayim (rods to which the ends of a Torah scroll are attached). “We really didn’t want to change anything we didn’t have to,” Rabbi Shemtov said. “But the bottom atzai chayim were not strong and were broken, so they had to be replaced.”

Around the Torah is a new cover, also donated by the Schwartz family, with wording that designates its dedication in memory of Daniel Sobolnitsky.

Dedicated To Freedom

On Sept. 9, the Shul held a celebration as the newly restored Torah was marched into the building and placed into the ark.

“When I saw my father’s Torah, I cried, because it was there in the memory of my father,” Sobolnitsky said.

“I was born in a country where they say there is no God. My family was very religious, but much of my life we didn’t go to shul because we would be in trouble if we did. This is why we came to the United States — not for money — but for freedom, to be in a place where we can talk and walk and pray and show our Torah anywhere.”

To use the newly dedicated Torah on Yom Kippur conveys a very powerful message, according to Rabbi Shemtov.

“The message of the Torah coming to the Shul on Yom Kippur is that every Jew can come home to God and can take on some of the mitzvot, no matter what trials and tribulations they have gone through,” he said. “We’re like the Torah that survived a great superpower trying to squash it. This is a Torah that showed it could go through distance, be under persecution, be hidden by the Russians and even be cracked. We might think, ‘What hope does this Torah ever have?’ But ultimately you fix it up and pray from it and learn from it and dance with it.”

Rabbi Shemtov stressed, “This is not just about a Torah — but about the people who kept the Torah. It is about Daniel, who lived with self-sacrifice, who kept underground minyans and went more than 100 miles to buy kosher meat,” he said. “He is an inspiration because he was able to keep the commandments through such difficult periods. He is also a great reminder of how much we can incorporate into our daily lives because we live a country that allows us religious freedom.”

A showing of that freedom was evident when Vladimir Sobolnitsky stood among others, including his new friend Howard Schwartz, to receive an aliyah at the Torah as it was unrolled and read for the first time in a very long time.

“Vladimir and I bonded like brothers,” Schwartz said. “Having an aliyah from the Torah, with him, was unbelievable. It’s like we were standing in front of a Torah that had come back to life. This Torah has been through more than we’ll ever know. During my aliyah, I kept thinking about all the people who read from this Torah and all the places it had been throughout the years.”

For Sobolnitsky, the thoughts were equally deep, but more specific. “Seeing the Torah being used,” he said, “was like watching my father’s dream come true.”