Like Living Beings

These days since the hurricane have been so strange. Each day I find myself called on to do things that I never imagined would have been part of my work.

Saturday morning, instead of leading meditation and services, I was in a convoy of vans and s.u.v.’s speeding toward New Orleans with an off duty SWAT team from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s department. We were heading into the city to evacuate the Torah scrolls from several of the synagogues.

Volunteers from Beth Shalom and B’nai Israel, together with representatives of the New Orleans Jewish Federation, Rabbi David Saperstein of the Union of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Cohn of Temple Sinai, and our nephew Nathan were among those who participated in this holy mission. Many thanks are due to Richard L. of B’nai Israel. Without him and his associates at the Sheriff’s office we would never have been allowed into the city. Thanks also to Erich, our Federation president, who organized the convoy.

We barreled toward New Orleans at about 85 miles an hour with sheriff’s cars in front of and behind the convoy. We did not slow down until we reached the checkpoint at La Place. The roads were filled with military and emergency vehicles and the skies with helicopters. As soon as we got off the spillway, we began to see signs of damage: billboards bent down to the ground or thrown into buildings, a motel with all the siding ripped off, a self-storage facility with its metal sides peeled off and the contents of people’s lockers exposed, and piles of lumber that used to be homes and stores.

Off the highway, the scenes became more surreal. The streets are almost empty and the city is eerily quiet. Trees are down almost everywhere you look. We saw boats that had been beached by water on the median on Carrolton. Audubon Park is an army camp now, full of humvees and giant troop trucks. Soldiers were everywhere checking houses and apartment buildings for the living and the dead.

We did not linger at any stop. The buildings were checked quickly for damage and we took the scrolls out and moved on. At each stop Rabbi Martha tagged the scrolls so that later, when the Sifrei Torah go home again, it will be easy to determine where they belong.

It was terribly sad to take the Torah’s away from where they belong. But to leave them there would have been worse. The Torah in our tradition is as close to a living being as an inanimate object can get. Torah scrolls are almost like living teachers. They should not be alone in empty synagogues.

In all, we gathered about 25 Torah scrolls. We wrapped them carefully in talitot for the trip back to Baton Rouge. Everyone understood the holiness of our task. We were quiet and deliberate in our work. There was reverence for the Sifrei Torah and for the stricken city.

When we got back to Beth Shalom, services had just ended. The chevre ran out to help us bring in the scrolls. Some children got to carry in the smaller Sifrei Torah. A number of the scrolls are bound for Houston Others will stay in the arks of Beth Shalom and B’nai Israel until called for.

I was honored to take part in this great mitzvah. It was surely one of the most important things I have ever done in my life.