(Courtesy of Yeshivat Frisch) This week, Yeshivat Frisch was incredibly fortunate to celebrate the hachnasah of a sefer Torah dedicated by Jacob and Sharona Schulder, parents of Frisch ninth grade student Saadya, Hannah and Noa.

“It was deeply moving to have the dedication the day before Erev Yom Kippur, as we go in front of Hashem, clinging to a life of Torah,” said Frisch Principal Rabbi Eli Ciner.

After dancing the sefer Torah into the beit midrash, students were fortunate to hear words from Mr. Schulder (a Frisch alumnus himself) about his cousin Ari, for whom the sefer Torah was dedicated. “I was very close to my cousin, and although his passing is very painful, writing a Torah is a great way to keep his legacy alive,” said Mr. Schulder. “He was a man who loved to challenge himself intellectually and he also loved Yiddishkeit.”

After davening, the freshman grade was treated to a seudat mitzvah, where Mrs. Esther Schulder, Saadya’s grandmother, spoke about her father’s survival of the Holocaust and her parents’ dedication to Torah as the central pillar of their lives. “The Torah represented faith to my parents and, if they survived, their dream was to have their children steeped in Jewish education and Judaism,” said Mrs. Schulder.

Yeshivat Frisch is so grateful to be the home of this new sefer Torah. May the Schulder family, the students of Yeshivat Frisch and the entire Jewish community merit to learn and grow in Torah over the course of the year and for generations to come. Chag Sukkot sameach!