Rabbi David Levinsky dedicated new Torah covers at Shabbat services at The New Reform Temple on Friday, May 1.
The new covers replace the original covers, which were needlepointed by early members of the synagogue at its founding in 1967 and will be permanently displayed at the synagogue.
The new covers were designed and hand-painted on silk by Kansas City artist Rochelle Gardner-Roe, who was selected by a committee comprising Rabbi Levinsky, Ward and Donna Katz, and Mara Katz Colbert. The wooden tops from the original Torah covers were reused in the new covers.
Whereas the original covers depicted animal life, the theme of the new covers is the Seven Species, which are the Torah’s way of characterizing the land of Israel as fertile and abundant in plant life. The species, as listed in Deuteronomy preceding Birkat HaMazon in gratitude for abundance, are wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates.
The Torah covers were a gift to the synagogue from Ward and Donna Katz in appreciation of the training by Rabbi Alan Londy and Hebrew tutor Brendan Carr for Ward’s bar mitzvah in 2022.