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Torah Scroll Dedication on Board Tel Aviv Train

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz (IsraelNN.com)

A specially commissioned Torah scroll was dedicated on Sunday for use aboard a commuter train by a traveling prayer quorum (minyan) on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv line.
Between 20 and 40 people pray in the train’s Mesilat Yesharim Minyan each morning.

A group of commuters living in Beit Shemesh commissioned the small Torah scroll and custom-made carrying case for their daily prayers. The Torah dedication was arranged together with BeLev Echad, an organization which teaches secular and unaffiliated Jews in the communities around Beit Shemesh about Torah Judaism.

Between 20 and 40 people pray in the train’s Mesilat Yesharim Minyan [prayer group] each morning after it leaves the Beit Shemesh station. The last carriage on the early morning train is unofficially reserved as the temporary “synagogue,” drawing both men and women, as well as Israel Railways crew members. The regular participants are a mixture of native Israelis and immigrants from North America and Europe who work in Tel Aviv in banking, law, computers, medicine, education and business, but who choose to live in the religious communities in Jerusalem or Beit Shemesh.

The ticket inspector periodically announces the start of prayers over the train intercom, in case new passengers are unaware of the unusual minyan. Mesilat Yesharim is actually the second “train minyan” which uses a Torah scroll on the Beit Shemesh-Tel Aviv route, and there are also afternoon and evening services on the trains home from Tel Aviv.

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