“The journey of this sefer Torah was nothing less than breathtaking”

O

ne of the most heartbreaking stories we heard in Mevo Modiim came from Mrs. Zelda Brecki, who owned a 150-year-old sefer Torah that was destroyed in the flames. The sefer Torah, which had survived the Holocaust, was buried at a levayah held by students of the Ner Tamid yeshivah in the village of Chashmonaim, where she works.

“The journey of this sefer Torah was nothing less than breathtaking,” she explained. “It was written in Poland. The sofrim who fixed it in Israel told us it had a very special kesav. Around the time of the Holocaust, maybe after it, it was moved to America. From there, it came to us in Eretz Yisrael.

“Two months ago, my grandsons, who were going on a trip to the [concentration] camps in Poland took it with them, in order to read from it in the cities and towns where it’s possible it was used in the past. It’s like it went through a long circle. They brought it back to Israel, and here it perished in the flames.”

How did it come into your hands?

“According to what I’ve been told, this sefer Torah, which was of a fairly small size, was written in Poland and was read from on Mondays and Thursdays, the market days. The Jewish traders who came from out of town and who couldn’t daven in their own villages would hold a minyan and read from it. I don’t know if it was right before or right after the Holocaust that it was moved to the United States.

“At some point, it was considered for genizah because it required many corrections. My uncle Rav Mosheh Lichtenstein [co-rosh yeshivah of Yeshivat Har Etzion] and his wife Chana, who were childless, rescued it from genizah and invested a lot of money in rehabilitating it, also providing it with ornamented handles. They used it in a shul in East Flatbush, New York. Over the years, the demographics in the area changed, and my uncle sent it to us in Eretz Yisrael. My husband ztz”l built a special aron where we kept the sefer Torah.

“After we fixed it, the sefer Torah became a sefer Torah of chesed. An old rav from Meah Shearim, who used to go to different cities on Shabbos, asked to use it. We agreed. We started giving it to families who needed a sefer Torah for shivah, or who read from it during various events. This sefer Torah was once in Nepal, where it was read from as part of an event there. It was taken to the Philippines, where there is a small Jewish community, and also to South America, where it was used in Jewish events. It was once read from on the island of Guam.

“On the last Shabbos Zachor, we lent it for an event that was held at Yafo Street in Jerusalem. Every Simchas Torah it would be danced with in shul. As many as 8,000 youth have used it over the years.

“Last Thursday, Lag B’omer, my grandkids came over to my house. When the order to evacuate came, we thought they were just taking extra precautions. We did not think the fire would come close to Mevo Modiim.

“I handed my grandchildren over to their parents and climbed to a high point at the edge of the village to see what was happening. To my shock, I saw the wind change and the fire head toward the buildings at breathtaking speed before my very eyes. My house had two stories. The first floor was built of concrete. The second floor was made completely of wood. My husband built it with his own hands. I saw tongues of flame reaching up toward the second story and understood that not much would be left.

“This Sunday, when they allowed us to enter, I saw the full extent of the tragedy. Only the ornamented handles of the sefer Torah were left.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 762)