New Torah will honor the memory of Marc Kissel
By Seth Mandel
Nov. 23, 2007
Noting the inability of distance or time to prevent God's work from being done, the late Rabbi Avigdor Miller once proudly reminded his students that the Torah has remained the same throughout the world and throughout history.
That understanding may be what led Rabbi Mendy Herson to walk the nearly nine miles from the Chabad Jewish Center of Greater Somerset County, in Basking Ridge, to the home of Stanlee and Florence Kissel, in Bound Brook, last March. It was a Saturday, so Herson couldn't drive, but the Kissels' 43-year-old son, Marc, had just lost his battle with cancer, and Herson wanted to make sure everything was taken care of.
And it is perhaps that same understanding that led the Kissels to honor Marc's memory by sponsoring the writing of a new Torah scroll to be housed at the Chabad center.
"As a living memorial to him, we decided on endowing an Torah," Stanlee Kissel told The Speaker at a Sunday, Oct. 28 celebration kicking off the 10-month Torah-writing process. "(Marc) was fanatically involved in the written word. The Torah is probably the oldest known written document we have."
Kissel said he and Florence considered dedicating a building or some other physical structure, but decided that "bricks and mortar don't really have a natural tie, whereas the Torah does."
The Oct. 28 event was held at the Grand Summit Hotel in Summit, and the scribe began writing the Torah in front of the guests.
Kissel said Marc had a master's degree in Shakespeare, which gave the act of writing a Torah special significance.
"He was fanatically involved in the written word," Kissel said. "And the Torah is probably the oldest known written document we have."
Kissel acknowledged that it is more common to dedicate an already written Torah, but that after speaking with Herson and his wife, Malki, they decided to take the extra step of having a new Torah written. Kissel said it will have the added benefits of being an educational experience for the community, as well as a project in which the community can participate directly, by sponsoring a letter, word, sentence, or other part of the text.
A curriculum for the Chabad preschool, Hebrew school, and possibly even the local public schools has been set up for the scribe to visit and teach the kids about the process.
"Somehow Malki and Mendy took the ball and ran with it," Kissel said.
"We thought it's a beautiful thing in and of itself, but we thought we could make it so much broader by bringing in the community and especially the children," Malki Herson said.
The Hebrew school and preschool kids, she said, can learn about the Torah from a religious and anthropological perspective.
And the community, she added, will have a stake in the finished Torah.
"It's not just another Torah," Malki Herson said. "The more connected to the process, the more connected to the final product one is."
Kissel mentioned the biblical commandment for every Jew to write a Torah. A person can fulfill this obligation in a couple different ways, he said, one of which is sponsoring part of a new Torah, which many in the area signed up to do at the event.
Kissel said members of the community had two reactions.
"One of wanting to participate, and the other of being overwhelmed at never having seen such a thing happen before," he said.
Kissel said he and Florence were eager to show their appreciation to the Hersons and to the entire community for their support during Marc's illness. He said strangers immediately became friends, and the community graciously rallied around them.
"The biggest thing is in thanks for all the support they gave us during Marc's illness," Kissel said. "It was just such an outpouring of love and joy, and we had to repay it."
Scott Seltzer regularly attends Chabad in Basking Ridge, and said the Torah writing is a "terrific" community project indicative of the Kissels' character.
"They want to do whatever they can to give back to the community," Seltzer said. "They're good people."
Flemington resident Lori Goldberg also attended the event. She has been attending services at Chabad for about 10 years and said the Kissels are friends of hers.
"They're wonderful, wonderful people," Goldberg said.
Goldberg said the Chabad has family atmosphere and the event was a truly unique and meaningful way for the area residents to support both the Kissels and the community.
"It's a great tribute, and it's a wonderful thing as a community to come together to do this," Goldberg said.
Watchung resident Vladimir Risman said he's been going to Chabad for about six years, though he's never been at an event quite like this one.
"It is beautiful," Risman said.
Herson spoke to the audience during the dinner, and referenced the Torah's consistency as an indication of the Jewish people being "one people with one heart."
"The Torah has a unifying effect," Herson said. "The fact is if we're looking through a Torah lens, and trying to lead a meaningful life, that's where we're going to find it. In that sense, the Torah is the glue that keeps us together."
And because of the community's involvement in the process, Herson said, when the Torah is finished, it will not just be any Torah, "it will be our Torah."
After the program, Herson told The Speaker that the Chabad center wrote a Torah in 1993, but it didn't have as much of a communal aspect to it as the Torah the Kissels are underwriting.
"I think that people are really excited about it," Herson said. "Everybody is connected on some level."
Kissel was optimistic that the connection the community will feel to the Torah will connect them to each other and even to Marc, the inspiration behind the project.
"Hopefully, it will keep his memory going," Kissel said.