A Sketch for Ella's Tallit

Some kids come into the world with their personalities in flux. Those kids take a while to emerge into who they really are. Ella, is one of those kids who came into the world with her personality complete.

A few months ago, Ella came up to me in synagogue and informed me that it was time for us to begin thinking about her tallit. While I was looking forward to working with Ella, it took until last week before we could sit down together. Ella's portion is Toledot ( Genesis 25:19- 28:9).

Ella wanted to use two different verses of blessing given to Jacob. The first was " And I will increase your progeny like the stars of the sky.". We decided to use that verse, on the corner pieces, each phrase of the verse on a different corner. So the corners will be blue, have stars and text. That was easy to figure out.

Then we had to figure out the rest of the tallit. The easy part was choosing the fabric for the tallit. Ella loved a slubbed silk/hemp similar to a shantung. Ella wanted a big flip over the shoulder tallit ( like her mother's).

The verse that really spoke to Ella was from Gen 27:28 "May God give you of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth, abundance of new grain and wine.". Her initial idea was a bit extravagant and probably would have looked a bit like a flag for a country deeply into arts and crafts. after a bit of mulling it over and a meeting that included Ella's father we came up with a still exuberant but quieter version #2.

Instead of having the entire verse on the atara/neckband, we will include just the very beginning of the verse "May God give you..." because the tallit instantly becomes more interesting if the text and the images are dependant on one another.

I don't know if the photo above shows the cute stalks of wheat and barley growing out of the grapevine. I know, not biologic truth but it does help to illustrate the verse nicely.

Ella's father asked me lots of questions about my physical process of working. So, not that you asked, but I will give you the answers that I gave Kobi last night. My first step with be serging the edges of the tallit so I won't have to worry about the fabric unraveling. Then I will fold the two outer edged of the tallit so they meet in the center. i will pressthe resulting folds so I have a guideline for painting on the vine. The grapes are bunches of grouped paint blobs. I will add a drop of alchohol to the center of each grape. No, it isn't so the grapes have alchohol content. The alchohol will push aside the dye leaving a dimensional looking grape.

Once the grapes are dry I will add the wheat and barley and will highlight them with gold metallic dye.Then i will do the water which is thin layers of dye with kosher salt sprinkled over the top to create a speckedly watery look.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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