Arlene
Schuster (RavArlene@aol.com)
December
30, 1999
Here
is a custom I had not yet heard about; perhaps some of you have, but some, like
me, may find this new.
Monday
of this week I was at a funeral at the synagogue where I belong with my
family. The memorial service and hesped
was in the shul itself, due to the large numbers of people who came to pay
honor to an elder of our community who was so very dear to so many people. Libby Erlitz, z"l was also one of our
regular Torah readers, and always read on Rosh Hashanah. The rabbi leading the service explained the
following custom attributed to Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg: when a memorial
service is held in a synagogue building where the person being honored was a
regular Torah reader, during the chanting of El Malei Rachamim, the Torah is
taken out, uncovered, and laid on the reading table. The table, in this instance, was covered with one of the many
hundreds of exquisite patchwork pieces that Libby herself had made.
It
was a moment of such awesome power that it defies description, and I hope it
may move some of you to adopt this custom where appropriate.