Woman Changing Tradition By Writing Torah For Downtown Synagogue

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Writing Torah is normally reserved for Orthodox Jewish men, but a woman is changing that tradition in a modern twist on ancient Hebrew text.

With the start of the Jewish New Year -- Rosh Hashana -- just minutes away, Rabbi Darren Levine says it's the perfect time to start a new chapter by installing their new Torah scroll.

"The ideas of hope, optimism, new beginnings, are flush in everybody's minds and hearts," he tells CBS2's Vanessa Murdock.

While every Torah scroll holds Jewish scripture, this particular one holds special meaning for Levine and his congregation at Tamid: The Downtown Synagogue, in part because it is the very first time St. Paul's Chapel will have a new Torah scroll installed, but also because of the scribe who put ink to parchment.

It's the first scroll written by a female for a congregation in Manhattan.

"Julie represented for us our values, egalitarianism, the equality of men and women," Rabbi Levine said.

CBS2 asked Julie Seltzer what the accomplishment meant to her.

"When I step away, I see how amazing it is," she said.

But when she's writing those 300,000 Hebrew words using a turkey feather, she said she's "not thinking about the implications, that it's the first Torah written by a woman in Manhattan."

"I feel the most connected and the most proud at the significance of connecting people to Torah," she said.

She's done that with more than just words. More than 90 percent of the congregation held her hand to write letters in the Torah.

"Those are some of the most magical moments because I got to see and feel the experience through their eyes," Seltzer said.

Rabbi Levine said the experience brought tears to most people's eyes.

Seltzer tells CBS2 the project took two and a half years to write. She's one of a dozen or so female scribes who write Torah.