In Trudie Strobel’s colorful embroidered artwork “Marriage,” a wedding chuppah sits between two large and impressive columns. The columns are Jachin and Boaz, the pillars that flanked the entrance to the Temple in ancient Israel. The arrangement emphasizes the strength of Jewish heritage and turns a moment in time into a celebration of Jewish continuity, … Continue reading
This topic requires a bit of a personal story. One of my favorite pieces of Judaica in the world is an 18th century Turkish Torah ark curtain –parochet—in the collection of the Jewish Museum London. The curtain is a red flannel wool richly embroidered in gold with Biblical and classical imagery: a city –Instanbul, perhaps, … Continue reading
Orange Summer by Justine Miller Have you heard the story about the woman who wanted to be a rabbi and who was told by a man that “a woman belongs on the synagogue bimah the way an orange belongs on a Passover Seder plate”? The story has inspired many families, including mine, to put oranges … Continue reading
Yesterday evening we finished a four-day tallit making class at a local synagogue. Eighteen students participated, most of them around bar and bat mitzvah age, but some as young as eleven and also several adults. Yesterday’s class was dedicated to finishing tying the tzitzit, which we started the week before. So much positive energy. Every … Continue reading
Here is Adin Steinsaltz, perhaps the pre-eminent Talmud scholar of our times, speaking about the many different paths to Jewish practice: “We believe that the Law has at least 600,000 different paths within it for individuals to enter. There is what is called ‘the private gate’ for each of us. And we each have to … Continue reading
My daughters recently took up yoga, which means I’m now on the hook to sew a bag for my oldest daughter to carry her yoga mat –but more about that later. Thinking about yoga’s meditative aspects sent me back to my bookshelf yesterday to take another look at Jewish Meditation, the guide written by Aryeh … Continue reading
At Sew Jewish, we’re focused on showing you how to make things, lots of Jewish things. But we also like to think we have a healthy perspective on it all. Here’s Abraham Joshua Heschel on the importance of putting things in their place: Things may be instruments, never objects of worship. Matzo, the shofar, the … Continue reading
Nick Thorpe suggests that maybe the solution to feeling unsatisfied with material things is to love our things even more: If Western consumer culture sometimes resembles a bulimic binge in which we taste and then spew back things that never quite nourish us, the ascetic, anorexic alternative of rejecting materialism altogether will leave us equally … Continue reading
Tim Wu draws attention to the role of DIY in expressing our humanity: Convenience technologies supposedly free us to focus on what matters, but sometimes the part that matters is what gets eliminated. Everyone knows that it is easier to drive to the top of a mountain than to hike; the views may be the … Continue reading
Even as we employ symbols in the creation of Judaica, remembering the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel, the twentieth century theologian and civil rights activist, reminds us of their limitations: The use of symbols whether in the form of things or in the form of actions is required by custom and convention; the fulfillment of … Continue reading
Sew Jewish 