Kevodo: A Package Straight From Hashem

[music] >> About 5 years ago, we started this shul Kehilas Tiferes Mordechai. [music] One of the foundational principles this shul stands on, there's no talking throughout the davening. You can't bring your phone into the shul. It's not negotiable. Everyone who comes in understands these are the house rules. And with [music] Siyata Dishmaya, the shul is L'shem ul'Tiferes. However, as we're starting, we did not [music] have a l'chatchila dikduk Sefer Torah. >> About 4-5 years [music] ago, we had the unbelievable privilege of writing a Sefer [music] Torah l'kavod our son Ari's Bar Mitzvah. And in chatting with my wife, we were thinking, where would be the right home for this Sefer [music] Torah? We're friendly with Rabbi Goldstein from the neighborhood. We know him back to our Queens days. And to us, that was a no-brainer. And so, I immediately called Rabbi Goldstein, not knowing whether they had a Sefer [music] Torah or not, and said, um, it would be our kavod gadol for my wife and I if you would borrow our Sefer Torah and lain from it on a weekly [music] basis. >> I said, "Dovid, I can't believe you're calling me. We are in desperate dire need of a kosher Sefer Torah. Why us? See, you could have given it to hundreds of yeshivas or [music] shuls throughout the world, throughout the United States of America." He said, "Rabbi Goldstein, aside from our our personal friendship, there could be no greater [music] kiddush Hashem than to lend our Sefer Torah to a shul where they're makpid on kavod [music] ha'Tefillah and there's no talking." >> It feels like a real mikdash me'at that there's so much [music] respect for the Sefer, it's so much respect for the davening and the laining that just gives us a tremendous amount of seppo that I can't fully put [music] into words. >> Dovid Solomon's Sefer Torah spends its time in our aron, in our beis hamidrash, and we lain from it >> [music] >> weekly. >> And I must say, when I visit the shul semi-annually, typically Shabbat Shuva and Shabbat Hagadol, it gives my wife and I and our entire family tremendous pleasure. Not only that the safer is housed with such a special rav and rebbetzin, [music] and it was something that the tzibur embraced in a big way. Suddenly, out of the blue, >> [music] >> they were gifted with a safer Torah, a brand new safer Torah, mehudar, at such a special makom tefillah. >> And this just goes to show that when a shul when an individual is careful about kavod hatefillah, to honor the shul, to honor [music] the davening, big good packages will [music] come your way straight from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. >> [music]