Cedars-Sinai's traveling Torah brings blessings
Portable holy document a first in U.S. hospital
A gravely ill Sephardic Jew came to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from his home in Israel, hoping to find a successful treatment for his terminal cancer. The treatment did not yield the results he had hoped, but chaplain Rabbi Levi Meier visited his room with something more comforting than medicine.
A gift from a hospital volunteer has made Cedars-Sinai the only Jewish hospital in the country to have in its chapel an easily portable Torah, the most sacred document of the Jewish faith. The small, lightweight Torah can be taken to patients' rooms, and Meier says it has made more of an impact on his patients than anything else he's done for them in his 28 years as a hospital chaplain.
Handwritten in Hebrew, the Torah typically is a bulky scroll always kept safely in an Ark in a synagogue. To touch or even kiss the Torah as it is carried into the synagogue for services is considered a blessing; to be able to hold a copy of the Torah in a hospital bed is, for most Jews, unthinkable.
Torah brings peace, comfort
"The day I brought [the ill Israeli patient] the Torah, it was just a regular day, not any holiday, but as soon as he saw me with it, he said, 'You know, Rabbi Meier, today is not an ordinary day. Today is my Simchas Torah,'" Meier recounts.
Simchas Torah is a celebration of the Torah, and falls on the last day of the Jewish harvest festival Sukkos. On that day, Jews in synagogue complete the yearlong cycle of reading the Torah, and begin the cycle again. Because the Torah is considered a document not only of the Jewish faith but also of the Jewish people, its importance is deep and far-reaching. For this reason, being able to hold and spend time with the Torah when they are ill or suffering is tremendously beneficial to Cedars-Sinai patients.
"He was telling me that even though he would not live to see another Simchas Torah [which is celebrated in the fall], bringing the Torah to him in the hospital brought him a sense of healing, and that his life was taking on a sense of completion," Meier says.
Patients weep, laugh, sing, and pray when holding the Torah, Meier says, and inevitably, they are heartened, cheered, and calmed.
Meier tells of an elderly rabbi who was admitted to the medical center for hip surgery. When Meier brought the Torah to his room, the patient began reciting a psalm.
"He started reciting. . . and his voice just completely broke, and he said the rest of the psalm in complete tears," Meier recounts. "That's what I find amazing about the effects of this [Torah]; I think that King David wrote that psalm from his depths, and that's how the rabbi recited it."
Idea came from chaplaincy volunteer
Meier says the idea for the portable Torah came from a volunteer who was with Meier when he made a visit to a patient while carrying the chapel's large, heavy, bulky Torah. Despite its unwieldy size, the Torah restored the patient's spirits. The volunteer, Sandy Gordon, had the idea to locate a smaller version of the Torah and place it in the chapel in honor of her parents.
Meier says two rabbis in Jerusalem located a scribe in Israel who could do the meticulous job of hand writing the scroll. The rabbis delivered it to Meier in January, who placed it alongside the full-size Torah in the hospital chapel's Ark.
The beneficial effects of having a Torah easily accessible to patients are not only in comforting patients nearing the end of their lives. Meier says patients recuperating from surgery and experiencing pain have found relief from their pain simply by touching the scroll.
"I took it yesterday to a man, and just as I brought it to him he was being discharged on a gurney to a rehabilitation facility," Meier says. "He told me he was scared to leave, so I put the Torah on the gurney with him and said we will take it all the way down to the ambulance. I later got a call from rehab, and they told me that because of that, he feels that connection is still there."
The traveling Torah has gotten lots of attention from other institutions and the media, Meier says, and he hopes the idea catches on.
"If there is one thing I would like to see, it is this: There are 33 Jewish hospitals in the United States, and ours is the first to have a traveling Torah," he says. "I would like to see others adopt the same thing, because it has changed my whole pastoral counseling and care, like nothing ever has before.
"This has taken what is an ordinary visit and made it so special, so spiritual. It gives patients a connection; if they're lonely, when they hold the Torah they don't feel so lonely."
(For more information on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's traveling Torah, contact Rabbi Levi Meier by e-mail at [email protected].)
A gravely ill Sephardic Jew came to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from his home in Israel, hoping to find a successful treatment for his terminal cancer. The treatment did not yield the results he had hoped, but chaplain Rabbi Levi Meier visited his room with something more comforting than medicine.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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