The first-ever dedication of a Torah scroll completed in northwest Arkansas drew media attention this week, with a television crew from local NBC affiliate KNWA on hand to record the festivities at the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center in Bentonville, home to Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters.

Community members lined up for a chance to write the final few of the more than 300,000 Hebrew letters that make up the holy scroll. It was dedicated as the Ratner Family Torah in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Ratner.

“It’s almost a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s like a wedding of the whole community,” the center’s director, Rabbi Mendel Greisman said in footage broadcast later that day. “It’s a great opportunity to unite around the Torah.”

The ceremony came almost three years after the Little Rock commissioning of the state’s first-ever Torah scroll.