Yoni's Album

Yoni celebrated his Bar Mitzvah back in March. His mum asked me to make him an album as a memento of the occasion. She sent me a copy of his Bar Mitzvah invitation and I designed the cover to match the colour scheme. Mum wanted the cover to be about Yoni being Bar Mitzvah and thought that it would be suitable to show him leining, or reading from the Torah. Given that his Bar Mitzvah was during lockdown, he was going to be doing this in their garden. She sent me a photo of their garden and asked if I could show it in the background. I included the blue fence and the stone coloured buildings of our city behind him.

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."

Yoni's mum was thrilled with her son's album. "It is perfect. I am so happy. You totally nailed it!" she wrote to me.

* 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.