an observation about clients

Lat night I had a tallit design meeting with a woman who is both an old friend and a repeat client. My friend is also a therapist ( the default occupation for women in my neighborhood). As we were evaluating different verses to use on this new tallit I had a bit of an epiphany.

I do these design meetings where we figure out the right verses for a piece and then design the piece around the verses, fairly often. Sometimes the route to figuring out the right texts and designs for a tallit is a direct one. One of my favorite work memories was coming up with the text for a Torah mantle that was being designed to honor the wedding anniversary of two college professors. We each had a bible or a prayerbook in hand and we each shouted out verses to one another. One of us would shout out a verse and another would nix it with gusto. After about ten minutes, we got the right verse. That process felt almost like being a contestant on Jeopardy.

When I work with therapists, the route is much more circuitous. We talk about intentionality and meaning. We look at verses that are not right because understanding how they don't work helps us to find the right verse. We share stories from our lives. It is a round about, evocative process and it helps to create a piece that is powerful on many, many levels.

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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sarah in nyc

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