The Sale of Refurbished Sifrei Torah
At Machon Ot we not only work with our hands, our eyes and our minds- we also work with our hearts. And our hearts break when we come across Sifrei Torah which were once the lifeblood of flourishing Jewish communities throughout the world and which linked their readers and studiers to their Father in Heaven and are now being neglected and left to rot in closets and warehouses in the four corners of the earth.
When entire Jewish communities were destroyed during WWII and the Holocaust, Torah scrolls were burned, destroyed and simply left for nature to take its toll.
We at Machon Ot feel very strongly that each and every Torah represents the traditions of the Jewish people, and tells the story of the of the community from which it originates and which no longer exists.
We therefore spare no effort nor expense to locate and rescue these
Torah scrolls throughout Europe and the Near East, to bring them to
Israel, to repair and restore them so that they may, once again, resume
their role of being the centerpiece of every Sabbath and holiday worship
service. Nothing is more moving than seeing a Torah which came from a
destroyed community being placed in the Ark of a new community and,
in its very essence, telling the story of the Jewish people.
Machon Ot has a variety of refurbished Sifrei Torah from different
countries and in price ranges significantly lower than new Sifrei Torah.
Many of our customers prefer to purchase a Torah which was written in
the city or country from which their own families lived. How symbolic it
is to restore such a Torah to use and thereby memorialize those who just
might have read from this very same Torah, thereby continuing the
chain of generations and tradition and saying to one and all “Am Yisrael
Chai”.
