But years later, as president of a Reform congregation, he found people more interested in promoting social and political agendas--feminism and ecology, for example--than in spiritual issues. He looked elsewhere. He looked to Jewish Renewal. About two years ago, he attended his first such service at a temple in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Impressed by the fervency with which the group worshiped--along with singing, they used drums, something the Orthodox don't do--Schusterman thought of starting a congregation in Dallas. Soon, a member of the Jewish Renewal's main office in Philadelphia told him there was a woman in Dallas affiliated with the movement. Eventually, he convinced that woman--Hesha Abrams--to start a group with him.
Their first meeting together attracted more than a dozen people, among them Susan Harris, who followed Schusterman from that unnamed Reform temple.
On a recent Friday night, members of Ruach Torah gathered at a fellow congregant's home to usher in the Jewish Sabbath.
After several members unrolled the parchment, Hesha Abrams speaks of this new gift, Ruach Torah's first-ever Torah.
Related Content
More About
She herself had become disillusioned with the temple, particularly because they had wanted to hold a garage sale on a Saturday, the Jewish day of rest. Harris, a 48-year-old accountant, decided she had to look elsewhere for spiritual respite.
In March of 1999, on Purim, a holiday that commemorates the Jews' redemption from death in ancient Persia, she showed up at Schusterman's home with a brass menorah in hand. Everyone invited had been told to bring a religious object that was dear to him or her. One person brought Sabbath candle sticks. Another brought a prayer shawl. While sharing memories, Harris began to sense that she belonged among these people. She has been a member ever since.
"I spend so much of my day with people who judge so much of what you do," she says. "This is a quiet place."
The Day of Rest was coming. And on a recent night, they gathered to usher it in at Joe Schusterman's house. On this Friday evening, this Sabbath eve, Hesha Abrams places a colorful prayer shawl with maroon trim around her shoulders. Everyone gathers around her, taking a seat in one of several chairs placed in a circle.
Her voice rises. The others soon follow. "How pleasant," they all sing in Hebrew, "to sit among one's brothers."
She extends her arms to those beside her and sways back and forth. Soon, everyone does the same, moving back and forth as if they were at a camp site, gathered around a fire.
Place your worries into the fire, she says. One by one, they briefly name their worries. For one, an HMO. For another, a broken car. The songs begin.
Later, as the music dies down, an older woman leaves the room for a second. When she returns, she holds a large, heavy Torah scroll encased in multicolored velvet. On this night, Ruach Torah gets its first-ever Torah, this one donated by an Irving Conservative congregation that is folding because its rabbi had accepted a post in another city.
"Thank you for planting your tree here," says Abrams about this Torah, this Tree of Life, as the Jews call it.
A teary Schusterman stands silently to the side, his arm wrapped around his wife, Sherry. A Mormon by birth, she converted to Judaism through the Reform movement more than 20 years ago.
In the minutes ahead, they dance around the room. They sing. And later, they place the scroll on the table in the dining room, where Abrams speaks in a soft, enthusiastic voice of the precision with which a scribe must have labored for more than a year to write each and every Hebrew word of the five Books of Moses. As several members unroll the parchment, the room quiets. They are at the beginning, the start of the Torah.
"In the beginning..." Haltingly, slowly, they read the words in Hebrew.
