The setting of positive resolutions followed last week's internment of a Torah scroll seriously damaged in a flood that struck the Beth Sholom Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Mineola, N.Y.

Members of the Long Island synagogue came out to the New Montefiore cemetery in Farmingdale, N.Y., to pay their respects and show support for the synagogue, which has embarked on a rebuilding campaign following the July 18 destruction. The burial was in keeping with Jewish law, which mandates that a Torah scroll deemed damaged beyond repair must be stored underground as a sign of respect.

Hundreds of men, women and children – including a delegation of Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis headed by Rabbi Tuvia Teldon, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Long Island – attended the ceremony, in which the Torah was placed in a bag and then in a wooden casket before being lowered in a cement vault. Attendees made resolutions to strengthen their learning of Torah and to be careful to not speak during daily prayers and public Torah readings.

At the ceremony, Rabbi Anchelle Perl, co-director of the synagogue, announced plans for a completion of a new Torah scroll in conjunction with the grand opening of the refurbished synagogue. The price for both is expected to exceed $500,000.