Torat Imeinu 2025
On March 1, 2025 (1 Adar), we dedicated a new mantle for Torat Imeinu, designed and created by four members of the synagogue community: Audrey Berner, Rabbi Boris Dolin, Leslie Dolin and Rami Negev.
The two designs on the cover represent elements that are specific to Dorshei Emet. The appliquéd pomegranate mirrors the torah’s crown, a “ramon”. The couched lines across the cover mirror the cracks in the broken window in the Aron Hakodesh, the window repaired in the style of Japanese kintsugi. We chose the colour of the velvet to match the rich red details in the crown.
We want to thank the Becker family for encouraging us to replace the previous mantle, which will be repaired and put on permanent display.
Torat Imeinu 2009
In 2009, in celebration of the upcoming Jubilee year of the congregation, Dorshei Emet commissioned a new Torah for everyday use. Spearheaded by Jeremy and Joyce Becker, “Torat Imeinu”–Torah of Our Mothers–sought to further the congregation’s commitment as Reconstructionists to gender egalitarianism. The congregation commissioned soferet Jennifer Taylor Friedman, one of the world’s few female Torah scribes, to complete the first female-scribed Torah in Canada, and only the third in the world.
Tradition teaches that if you write a single letter of a Torah, it is as though you had written the whole Torah yourself, and if you write a Torah, it is as though you received it directly from God at Mount Sinai. Therefore, congregants were invited to participate in the Torah’s creation both by fiscal sponsorship and by personally writing a letter, with Jennifer’s help. Almost 400 congregants participated in this way. The result was a lighter Torah that could be lifted by men, women, and b’nei mitzvah alike, and one that had the full participation of the congregation itself. The new Torah was joyously welcomed with song, dance, and celebration on May 16, 2010.