Community Corner
Boy Scout Contructs Genizah for Eagle Scout Project
Kings Park Jewish Center buries books and other religious artifacts in "grave" known as Genizah
Eagle Scout Jordan Shapiro took on a project that many Boy Scouts may have passed on; digging a grave. This grave isn’t for bodies though, it is for books.
Shapiro, 17 and a senior at Kings Park High School has been a scout since the first grade. He and his troop dug a Genizah, which is a grave or repository for religious books, papers, prayer shawls and other religious artifacts that have become worn or unusable. The Genizah was built to be used by the Kings Park Jewish Center.
According to Rabbi Jacob Benzaquen of the center when objects are used for sacred purposes they take on a sacred status. That includes books. Not just prayer books, books all books that have sacred writing.
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“The study of God’s word is a sacred act,” said Benzaquen. “Any object related to that takes on sacredness. For that reason books that have God’s name in them and shawls that have been used for sacred acts cannot be thrown away, they must be buried.”
With the help of Boy Scout Troop 539 of Kings Park, Shapiro dug a seven by seven, five foot deep Genizah that will hold about 25 boxes of books and other objects.
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“The temple did this about six years ago, but that Genizah was only about three and a half feet deep,” Shapiro said.
The entire project took about 20 hours and took the boys months to complete.
“I had to estimate prices of every nail and every screw,” he said. “We had a car wash for a fundraiser. We raised $400 and that was enough to cover the costs.”
A crowd of about thirty gathered last Thursday in a cemetery owned by the Kings Park Jewish Center to honor the event.
Shapiro, who hopes to achieve Eagle Scout status would not be the first one in his family to achieve the high honor.
“My dad was in scouting and he was an Eagle Scout,” Shapiro said. “That pushed me to be an Eagle Scout just like my dad.”
“We at the synagogue are very proud of Jordan, that he’s taken this project to heart,” said Rabbi Benzaquen. “He has taken the time and effort to fulfill a very important commandment of honoring those sacred objects with a proper Jewish burial.”
