Progress on two fronts

Eight verses of Psalm 146 are now painted on one strip of wool for Alan's tallit.

The letters will need another layer of paint and an outline to cute the lettering up a little bit. I will probably be painting this text out a few more times before this task is completed but it feels like a good start.

I have discovered, that it is for some reason, easier to copy the text from my phone than from a book. I love this mix of high tech and low tech to complete a task.

As always I am the most efficient as a worker when I have several tasks on my plate at one time so I can hop from one task to another when I get stuck. Otherwise I can just wallow in my failures and not get anything done.

So, the other task on my plate is the Schechter Mappah.

Yesterday I finished edging the sky.

Three rows of rat-tail cording have all be hand stitched into place.

The other night, I realized something about this mappah. I realized that the Schechter school has been using this piece upside down for the past fifteen years. My intention was for the texts about learning Torah to be under the Torah scroll when in use (which was why the dome was made out of the heavy duty upholstery weight Ultrasuede.)

The doorway to the building-- is all about prayer.

I will have to make my intentions more clear to the powers that be at the Schechter School. I think that the piece will wear better if it is used as intended.

Yesterday I dyed the doorway arch panel. In the previous incarnation I had used silk. This time I am using Ultrasuede because it is so long wearing.

The mottled dye makes the Ultrasuede look more like natural leather.

I have begun to piece together the silk for the building masonry. I haven't taken photos yet but trust me, there is progress. As I work on restoring this piece I keep thinking about how I can make each and every element a bit more long wearing. When I get stuck I will be sure to ask for help from my wise readership.

Shabbat Shalom! Stay cool and hydrated.

Tisha B'Av is this week. Those of you who may find the destruction of the temple a little hard to relate to may find resonance in this version of the poem Eli Tziyon that is usually chanted after the Book of Lamentations. The poem was re written as a meditation on Covid. I was ugly crying through the video.

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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!!!

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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...

sarah in nyc

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