On Friday, a joyous celebration was held in Yossi’s honor revolving around the dedication of a Sefer Torah — an elaborate, handwritten scroll of the Jewish Bible that is read in synagogues on the Sabbath and holidays.

A religious scribe, with the help of Yossi’s father, Michael, put the finishing touches on the scroll during a festive gathering at Keneseth Beth Israel synagogue.

But that was only a warm-up for what came next: More than 100 family and friends carried the scroll in a raucous procession of music and dancing along Patterson Avenue for a half-mile — as police blocked the westbound lanes — from the synagogue to Yeshiva of Virginia, a Jewish boys high school where the lending library bears Yossi’s name and where the Torah scroll will be housed.

“This is the highest you can do to memorialize someone ... to dedicate a Torah like this,” said Leah Paley, Yossi’s mother. “It’s the Super Bowl of dedication things.”

In keeping with her nature — “I’m flamboyant and extravagant,” she says — Leah Paley would not go about something like this in an understated way. But when an enduring mission of yours is to make sure the firstborn of your seven children is not forgotten, a little hoopla is not a bad thing. She remembers climbing into bed with Yossi as he lay ill and tried, as she wrote, “to give him enough kisses to last a lifetime.” She can no longer hug and kiss him, but she can shower his memory with affection and attention.

I first became acquainted with the Paleys in 1998, less than a year after Yossi had been diagnosed. Michael and Leah Paley had found support and information from parents of children with cancer around the country on an electronic forum, at a time when the internet was a still relatively new tool for the masses.

Later, Leah launched her own blog — when blogs were just becoming popular — to keep family and friends and what turned out to be thousands of others informed about Yossi’s journey: the little victories, the frustrations and setbacks, and ultimately the unimaginable heartbreak.

“It just took off,” she told me in 2001. “People started talking to people who started talking to people.”

She discovered the power of the internet and the understanding and warmth that far-flung community created. Years later, she would put the power and reach of extended community to use, raising money to finance the Torah scroll. It’s a labor-intensive and time-consuming undertaking that generally runs well into the tens of thousands of dollars. In this case, it cost $50,000.

She got the idea for commissioning a Torah scroll while attending a bar mitzvah.