A good Shabbat'
Greenwood Lake congregation looks to reawaken its spirit in its new home, By Jeffrey Page Greenwood Lake - The charred wood and rubble were removed from the site of the burned Greenwood Lake synagogue long ago to make way for construction of a new temple. Because some of the ashes of the old will forever remain in the ground surrounding the new, Rabbi Brenda Weinberg said, there will always be a connection of the two. Soon, probably in early autumn, the members of Congregation B’nai Torah will walk across that ground with Weinberg and dedicate their new synagogue. Once again on Old Dutch Hollow Road there will be the sounds of a vibrant synagogue: The ancient Hebrew prayers and chants, people wishing one another “a good Shabbat” and the voices of young children practicing for their bar and bat mitzvahs. The old shul, a 50-year old all-wood structure, burned 39 months ago in a furious blaze following work on its electrical system. Everything was lost, Weinberg said, including Torahs, prayer books and synagogue records. Finding refuge in the Ambulance Corps building Over time, with gifts and loans of worship supplies from other synagogues, B’nai Torah has continued offering Sabbath services, Hebrew school classes, and monthly community dinners all at the former headquarters of the Greenwood Lake Ambulance Squad. But some members drifted away and now, as Bnai Torah prepares for its return to a home of its own, it is launching a direct mail campaign with invitations to 3,200 Jewish families in Warwick, Monroe, Chester, Bellvale, Highland Mills, Tuxedo Park and Greenwood Lake, plus West Milford and Hewitt across the state line in New Jersey. “We need to enlarge the congregation and attract young families if we are to survive,” said Ronald Nathan, a retired Staten Island high school guidance director, who heads the membership drive. He’s also advertising for new members in local newspapers. Just after the fire in early 2004, Weinberg received several offers of places to hold services temporarily, winding up at the ambulance building. B’nai Torah also got the use of the Jewish Community Center in Upper Greenwood Lake, N.J. for its well-attended High Holiday services. Later, Nathan said, the JCC even deeded its building to B’nai Torah, which intends to sell it and apply the proceeds toward the cost of its own rebuilding. The cost of the new synagogue will be in excess of $500,000. And finally, synagogues and churches throughout the greater New York area and from as far off as Los Angeles and western Canada showered B’nai Torah with expensive kindnesses such as pews, Torahs and a new ark to hold them, prayer books, prayer shawls, skullcaps, even a bima on which to rest the Torah when it is read during services - all the essentials. Some of these donations came from thriving synagogues, others from temples that had closed. Never be forgotten The new Congregation B’nai Torah also accepted memorial plaques from some synagogues that have gone out of existence and will place them with the congregation’s own plaques. The dead, whose names and dates are inscribed on those tablets from other temples, may never have been known to the members of B’nai Torah but with the fastening of their nameplates to the walls of the new synagogue, they will never be forgotten. These days, as Weinberg tools around Orange County in her green pickup to collect yet more donations - a lectern here, prayer books there - she is also thinking about the first service she’ll conduct in the conservative congregation’s synagogue. It will be on a Friday night, most likely in the fall, Weinberg said. She hopes to gather her people outside the new building and fasten to the door post a mezuzah, a small container holding the Shema, a prayer that is central to Judaism: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” Then she intends to lead the congregation in what she describes as “a parade of sacred Torahs” into their new spiritual home. Will there be a dry eye at the site of the new B’nai Torah that night? Not likely. Hoping to be ready for the High Holidays As Weinberg sees to the spiritual in these final months before the dedication of the new synagogue, Nathan tends to the practical. His goal is to attract scores of new people to join the old timers in sitting in those donated pews, to wrap themselves in those donated shawls, and to worship from those donated siduras or Sabbath prayer books. B’nai Torah had been a small congregation for years before the fire. It got smaller as some families moved away or found other temples to join. Now there are 35 member-families with perhaps 12 to 15 people typically showing up for Friday night services, Nathan said. “We’re all hoping we’ll be able to open for the High Holidays,” Nathan said. Rosh Hashanah, which starts the night of Sept. 12 this year, and Yom Kippur typically draw more worshippers than other holidays. B’nai Torah is a feisty congregation. At no time, Nathan said, was there talk of abandoning it in its own ashes.