Reflections on a Moving Day: The Torah Procession

Maura Lerner Fisher

When they first planned the procession, the leaders of Bet Shalom gambled that it would be a warm spring day, and that their destination, the brand-new synagogue in Minnetonka, would be finished and move-in ready.

They were wrong on both counts.

Still, that day in April, 2002, when the congregation marched along four miles of snow-covered streets, singing and carrying Torahs, would prove to be unforgettable.

“The whole thing was kind of magical,” remembers Laurie Levin, a longtime board member, who joined the parade with her husband Jim Brickwedde and their sons Peter and Sam.

The march marked a momentous moment in Bet Shalom’s history: saying goodbye to its quaint old home, a former church in Hopkins, for a stunning circular building designed to embody the traditions and ambitions of a vibrant Jewish community.

The plan was to celebrate the occasion with a nod toward the past — the biblical past.

“With the march, of course, I thought of the ancient march in the wilderness,” said Rabbi Emeritus Norman Cohen, who led the congregation at the time. “Because this (was) sort of like the Promised Land.”

But the new building, three years in the making, was still a bit raw on the day of the “Bet Shalom Torah March” — April 28, 2002.

And then it snowed.

“It was a lesson,” Rabbi Cohen remembers with a grin. “Man plans and God laughs” (translation of a Yiddish proverb).

Yet members of the congregation came out in force. Bundled up, at least 100 adults and kids assembled at the old synagogue in downtown Hopkins, and set off — to the sounds of the shofar — against a cold, sharp wind.

A few blocks away, the marchers were stopped in their tracks by a sight that still brings back warm memories 20 years later.

A church choir, waiting outside in the cold at nearby Mizpah United Church of Christ, began singing as the Bet Shalom procession passed by.

And the same thing happened at two more churches along the way.

“They had groups of congregants organized and cheering us on,” remembers Bob Rubinyi. “That was just such a wonderful sign of support and interfaith cooperation. That was really heartening.”

For Rabbi Cohen, it was one of the highlights of the day.

“The church stops were so powerful for me personally,” he recalled, noting that he had become close to the ministers through years of interfaith collaborations. “We planned to march by the churches because those are our friends.”

The welcome parties, he added, were especially touching. One church group sang a Hebrew song of friendship, “Shalom Chaverim.”

“It was,” said Rabbi Cohen, “such a reinforcement of the value of interfaith relationships.”

But if any single moment stands out, it was at the end of the four-mile trek, as the procession reached the gentle knoll on Orchard Road where the new synagogue awaited.

Rabbi Cohen remembers walking backwards so he could watch the reactions as the marchers streamed inside.

“For so many people, it was their first time in the building,” he said. The looks on their faces were priceless.

Beyond the gleaming edifice, the interior was still a construction site — the sanctuary unfinished, the ark an “empty shell.”

But the Torahs had arrived.

Yale Dolginow, one of the founding members of Bet Shalom Congregation, carried the Sephardic style round case Torah that was commissioned for our congregation's 18th (Chai) anniversary.

Rabbi Cohen lit the ner tamid - the eternal light.

And the shofar sounded once again.

Dolginow, who had been at the birth of Bet Shalom in 1981, summed it up best: “It was a dream fulfilled.”