Torah Scribe At Brooklyn Temple Serves As Symbol For Jewish Women Seeking Religious Equality
NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) -- Sunday night is the final night of Sukkot, a Jewish holiday that is supposed to remind Jews of their ancestral escape from slavery. For many Jewish women this Sunday also signifies new progress in their pursuit of religious equality.
Linda Coppleson is one of few female Torah Scribes in the world, she is responsible for quill penning the sacred words of the Torah at a Brooklyn Temple.
"Each Torah has about sixty-two pages, most of the pages have four columns each on them," she told CBS 2's Amy Dardashtian.
Coppleson spends five hours every day crafting each letter. The process takes a year and a half, and when she is done the Torah will be the first on the east coast to be written entirely by a woman.
"It was really just kinda like this pie in the sky dream that I'd be able to do it, and uh it's really happened, I just feel you know I've really done something, I've really accomplished something," she said.
Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein said that the milestone sent an important message to children.
"What's very exciting is seeing the children today who see role models, they see Linda Coppleson writing a Torah, they see women on the beema and they know it's not closed to them," the Rabbi explained.
Despite the progress, Epstein said that some strict Orthodox leaders would not approve of what the reform congregation is doing.
Monday night marks the start of Simchat Torah, a celebration of the Torah.
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