I have shown Yoni reading from the Torah scroll. He is wearing the flowered
shirt and blue waistcoat that mum sent me a picture of and a tie as well -
very British! Yoni is right-handed, so he is holding the
yad, or Torah pointer, in his
right hand. The yad is used by the reader to follow the text
during the Torah reading from the parchment Torah scrolls. It ensures
that the parchment is not touched during the reading. There are several
reasons for this: handling the parchment renders one ritually impure and the
often-fragile parchment is easily damaged. Moreover, the
vellum parchment does not
absorb ink, so touching the scroll with fingers will damage the lettering.
I decorated five pages inside Yoni's album and this time mum wanted them to
reflect his interests as a younger child. The first page, above, illustrates his
love of animals, dinosaurs and jigsaw puzzles. I cut out the tiny jigsaw pieces
to match the colour scheme of the Bar Mitzvah. I added some Lego pieces in
various colours to the next page and then some of his favourite Marvel and DC
superheroes: Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Aquaman and Black Panther. A page
also featured the logo of Yoni's school robotics and programming club,
below, bottom right.
Finally, the last decorated page shows Yoni's interest in various sports
through the ages: cricket, fencing, pull-ups on the bar and table tennis. I
cut out tiny pieces of equipment to represent each sport.
The lettering on the cover of the album, below, says Yoni in both Hebrew and
English, and then Bar Mitzvah and the
Hebrew date of
his Bar Mitzvah celebration.
Returning to the album cover, Yoni can be seen wearing a white tallit
prayer shawl with black stripes. The tallit is first worn by Jewish boys
on their Bar Mitzvah. It is a rectangular-shaped piece of linen, wool or
silk with special fringes called tzitzit on each of the four corners. Jewish men wear a tallit for morning
prayer, during the week, as well as on Shabbat and other holy days.
Yoni's mum had mentioned the idea of having the first few words of
his leining somewhere on the cover too. I suggested
having them running along the white tablecloth covering the table where
the Torah scroll has been laid. Yoni was reading from Parshat Shemot, the thirteenth weekly Torah portion in the annual cycle of Torah
reading and the first in the Book of Exodus.
The verse his parents picked out from chapter 31 of Shemot was ושמרו בני ישראל את השבת לעשות את השבת לדרתם ברית עולם. "Thus shall the children of Israel observe the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant."
The verse his parents picked out from chapter 31 of Shemot was ושמרו בני ישראל את השבת לעשות את השבת לדרתם ברית עולם. "Thus shall the children of Israel observe the Sabbath, to make the Sabbath throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant."
* This post has been shared on
Inspire Me Monday, Craftastic Monday Link Party,
The Really Crafty Link Party,
The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) and
The Happy Now Link-up.
14 comments:
So beautiful and personal!
The front cover is amazing with such detail. A great keepsake of an important milestone in his life. #MMBC
Congratulations to Yoni and what a great album. The detail on the cover is amazing x
What amazing attention to detail as usual, I hope Yoni enjoys his album as much as I have enjoyed looking at how you made it. #mmbc
Love all the little details. Now I am humming ושמרו!
It is absolutely perfect! I can see why Yoni's Mum was very pleased by your skillful crafting and your personalization of this album.
It is nice. I think you are very happy you can makes people so glad with your paper art.
Such a beautiful personalized gift you've made!
No wonder they were pleased with the album. What a beautiful keepsake. xx
What a lovely idea and gift to give to someone x #mmbc
What a great memory this beautiful album is for Yoni 💙
That album is absolutely amazing. I love all the little details you add and all the thought that goes in to creating the front page and the decorations on the inside pages. Interesting to learn more about Bar Mitzvah and reading from the Torah too. #MMBC
That’s a lovely idea to include childhood memories as he celebrates this sacred rite of passage to adulthood.
What a gorgeous keepsake. I am sure this will be cherished both now and for years to come! Thanks for linking up to #ForTheLoveOfBlog
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