by Julie Steinbacher ’10 Photos by Rashid Belt Photography
Writing a
Torah After more than a decade of educating and creating a space for Jewish students on Goucher’s campus, Goucher Hillel has its own Torah.
H
ilda Perl Goodwin ’43 grasped the quill pen firmly but carefully. Her fingers rested just above those of Rabbi Gedaliah Druin, and together they suspended the quill, its tip gleaming with
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black ink, over a section of the Torah inscribed on a nearly 200-year-old scroll.
“Hold onto this feather tightly,” said Druin as he guided the edge of the quill to a faded character.
“You’re going to aim for that lamed.”
In one expert stroke, a brief scratching against parchment, Druin and Goodwin renewed the sinuous
letter, whose shape suggests a person reaching toward the sky for knowledge.
“You’re doing the impossible,” said Druin. “The whole sacred Torah is written with one letter.
That’s your lamed.”
Goodwin, who is 90 years old, had never before performed the mitzvah, or commandment, of
writing a Torah. Usually this mitzvah is fulfilled by hiring a trained ritual scribe like Druin, called a sofer, to write a Torah, a process that may take more than a year. Rarely does a layperson get to take part in the physical process of restoring a scroll. On April 28, however, Goucher Hillel invited community
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