“Justice, justice you shall pursue that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord has given you.” (Deuteronomy 16:20)

So read the words chosen by Rabbi Joe Mendelsohn of the Reform Temple of Laguna Woods to honor his wife, Linda. They will be inserted into what will soon be a newly repaired Torah, a restoration that is part of the Temple’s 25th anniversary celebration.

Mendelsohn is not alone in his wish to add letters and words into the sacred scroll. “Many people have never seen an open Torah,” he said.

Reform Temple congregants twice have gathered – in April and May – at Clubhouse 5 to witness the Torah scroll being unrolled and repaired by a sofer, a scribe who is trained in writing and repairing Torah scrolls to the highest religious standards.

For the repair, the Temple has hired Los Angeles sofer Ron Sieger. He will return to the Village to continue his work on Thursday July 7, starting at 1 p.m. at Clubhouse 1. All residents are invited to participate in the ceremony.

Reform Temple congregants earned the honor of adding letters, or special blessings, by making gifts toward the repair of the Torah, a $25,000 project co-chaired by congregants Margot Gilison and Marti Hack, the incoming president of the Reform Temple.

“Every temple should have at least one Torah; two or three are better,” Gilison said. “This project is a big deal.”

The Torah is Judaism’s holiest symbol and contains the Five Books of Moses, words preserved as given verbatim to Moses on Mount Sinai and revered by the Judeo-Christian community, Mendelsohn said.

Congregants had given donations in multiples of 18 (chai in Hebrew, meaning life), he said. It’s a Jewish custom to give monetary gifts in such increments to bless recipients with a good, long life.

The Reform Temple’s Torah was in considerable need of repair to restore it to its holy state, Sieger determined. Sections of the parchment had small tears and indents, and letters had faded or had been obliterated by time and use.

Congregant Gilison joined the Reform Temple 14 years ago.

“I come from a religious background, and the Torah is an important part of Jewish life,” she said. “It has to be kosher, meaning that the parchment and letters have to be in perfect shape.”

If a Torah is used regularly, Gilison said, it should be examined every seven years by an expert sofer and koshered if need be. A mezuzah, the scroll embedded in small cylinders affixed to the doorposts of observant Jewish households, is checked every three and a half years, she added.

Esther Wright joined the congregation five years ago and dedicated her Torah letters to her parents, who were members of the Reform Temple and Temple Judea.

“My father lived here in the Village for 35 years. Hyman Weiser died at age 95,”  Wright said. “He was a devoted Jew, a real mensch, who taught his children to be kind and to be of service to others.”

Warren Walker inherited his parents’ house in the Village and moved here after living in the Netherlands. He dedicated letters in the Torah to his parents, David and Selma Walker.

“I’ve never done this before,” Walker said of writing a letter into a Torah.

The congregants didn’t get to write the letters into the Torah scroll themselves. Instead, they joined sofer Sieger at a long table upon which the scroll was laid out and gave him their letters, or blessings, verbally. They then placed a hand on his writing arm, thus writing vicariously and perhaps symbolizing a commandment (mitzvah) that asks Jews to write a Torah scroll once in their lifetime.

Touching the Torah parchment is taboo. Instead, readers use a special pointer called a yad, Hebrew for hand, to follow the text. The 304,805 letters in the Torah are inked with a kulmus, a small turkey feather quill.

It takes a sofer roughly one and a half years to write a complete Torah by hand. Sieger said the shortest time in which a Torah was written was four and a half months.

“There were plenty of mistakes,” he noted. Only one letter off, and a Torah fails.

Not surprisingly, technology has made inroads even here.

“Computers can now check Torahs, and they find more mistakes than humans (do),” Sieger said.

When a computer finds mistakes, Sieger scratches them off with a sharp blade and fills in missing letters with his quill.

Sieger writes 248 columns, or two pages, of the densely spaced Hebrew text every day, he said.

“I did not have the calling to become a rabbi. I wanted to teach children to be inspired by the Torah,” he said, adding that a friend, also a sofer, had inspired him.

Sieger acquired his skills and became certified as a sofer in Israel.

“Patience and a steady hand are necessary, and dedication to a community is essential,” he said.

Over time, the Reform Temple had owned three Torahs; two of them had to be retired due to not being kosher.

The third – the one being restored – is heavy, about 30 pounds. The temple is looking to buy a lighter Torah, 10 to 16 pounds, so that senior congregants can handle them. Rabbi Mendelsohn explained that the Torah is lifted, raised and carried during services.