Joyeux Anniversaire

This is another card I made before we lost Gadi. The recipient turned 75 in May 2022. His daughter-in-law asked me to make a birthday card for him. Hobbies include photography, plays, concerts, art exhibitions, Judaica (her father-in-law has a spice box collection) and travel, she wrote to me. That long list was whittled down to a camera, an aeroplane, and something to represent modern art!

I showed my customer's father-in-law with a camera in his hands. There is an aeroplane behind him, to represent his love for travel, and also some framed art and a sculpture. I added a 75 to the card too, to mark his age. Next to him is a spice box. Spice boxes are used at the havdalah ceremony performed at the end of Shabbat, to separate the holy day from the weekday (havdalah means "separation"). The ceremony involves lighting a special candle with several wicks, blessing a cup of wine, and smelling sweet spices. The spice box is passed around and everyone smells the aromatic spices as a way to uplift the spirit since the end of Shabbat is experienced as a sad moment.

My customer sent the card to France, where her father-in-law lives, thus the greeting "Joyeux Anniversaire", or "Happy Birthday". The traditional Hebrew blessing "120 עד" directly below means "May you live until 120". The Torah states that Moses died a the age of 120, at which age "his eye had not dimmed, and his vigour had not diminished". (Deuteronomy 34:7). The blessing therefore carries the implication that the receiver should have a long and fulfilled life.

My customer was very happy with the card. "I've been wanting to have an excuse to order a card from you for ages. Love your work!" she wrote to me.

In January 2023 another customer wrote to me and said "Unbelievably my uncle Joe is 100 in 3 weeks... it feels like the card is very important. So if you feel like making him one, I'd love that." She told me that Uncle Joe likes coffee and chocolate.

I decided to show him holding a big birthday cake with lots of candles on it, though I didn't add 100! A hot cup of coffee is in front of him and some yummy chocolate behind him. A big red 100 marks his very special age.

"I absolutely love the card" my customer wrote to me, then sent me this wonderful photo of her and Uncle Joe together.

* This post has been shared on Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) and Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop.

Mem, Shin and the Vulcan Hand Salute

A local customer was looking for gifts to take to family members in the US. She learnt about my papercuts and contacted me about some Hebrew letters, ultimately ordering a letter "מ" and two letters "ש".  The pieces, backed in grey and navy blue, were very well received, my customer writing "Total success! Everyone loved their gifts! Thank you!".

I have written about the Hebrew letter מ, or Mem, before. Mem is the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has the sound of "m" as in "mum".

The letter ש, or Shin (pronounced "sheen"), is the twenty-first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has the sound of "sh" as in "shy". It is shaped like a crooked English W. In gematria, which is a mystical tradition that assigns a numerological value to Hebrew letters, Shin represents the number 300.

The sole difference between the letter shin and the letter sin (pronounced "seen") is the presence or absence of a dot. If a dot appears to the upper right of the letter, pronounce "sh"; if it appears to the left, pronounce "s".

The letter Shin appears engraved on both sides of the head tefillin. On the right side, the Shin has three heads, while on the left it possesses four. The two different Shins represent the two ways the Torah was written: in stone and upon parchment.
The Shin is also the letter printed on the Mezuzah, a small box placed on the right doorpost of Jewish homes which contains a parchment scroll with verses from the Torah inscribed on it. On the Mezuzah the letter Shin stands for the word Shaddai, a name for G-d. When Jewish people leave their home, they touch the letter that represents the name of G-d and kiss their fingertips as a sign of reverence to G-d and His word.

A kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid-1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan hand salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek. Apparently the directors told him to come up with some type of hand sign to use in the film. Being Jewish, this was the first thing Spock thought of, and they just went with it.

Photo credit: StarTrek.com

In the Hebrew language Shin as a prefix carries similar meaning to "that", "which" and "who".

The Shin-Bet was an old acronym for the Israeli Department of Internal General Security, and the name of the service is still usually translated as such in English. In Israeli Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic, the security service is known as the "Shabak".
A Shin-Shin is the Hebrew acronym for Shenat Sherut, meaning "year of service". In addition, a Shin-Shin clash is Israeli military jargon for a battle between two tank divisions.
Sh'at haShin (the Shin hour) is the last possible moment for any action, usually military. This corresponds to the English expression the eleventh hour.

Photo credit: https://bereanbiblejourneys.com

The letter Shin mimics the structure of a human heart, above. The lower, larger left ventricle (which supplies the full body) and the smaller right ventricle (which supplies the lungs) are positioned like the lines of the letter Shin. This is said to remind us that we are to love the Lord our G-d with all of our heart.

Photo credit: https://bereanbiblejourneys.com

When you look at a topographical map of Jerusalem, above, you can see that the three valleys that comprise the city's geography - the Hinom Valley, Tyropoeon Valley and Kidron Valley - all converge to form the shape of the letter Shin. G-d said he would put His name in Jerusalem, and from an aerial view, here it is!

Finally, according to Judges 12:6, the tribe of Ephraim could not differentiate between Shin and Samekh, the fifteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When the tribe was at war with the Gileadites, the Gileadites would ask suspected Ephraimites to say the word shibolet; an Ephraimite would say sibolet and thus be exposed. From this episode we get the English word shibboleth.

* Jewish people do not write G‑d's name in a place where it may be discarded or erased. Treating G‑d's name with reverence is a way to give respect to G‑d.

** This post has been shared on The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Senior Salon Pit Stop Link Party, Tuesday Turn About Link Party and Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop.

Chai חי

It has taken me quite some time to feel like sharing a piece of my artwork here. Whilst I never totally stopped creating after my youngest son died, it somehow didn't feel right sharing the pieces here. I didn't want my readers to think that everything was back to normal. Nothing is back to normal in my life and, with Gadi gone, it never will be. However, Gadi was a creative soul. He was the one I went to when I needed an opinion about something or if I wanted to check a colour or face resemblance. I really feel that he would want me to carry on with my art and this piece, created for a customer in the US who kindly reached out to me because she wanted to support an Israeli artist in these difficult times, seems exactly the right piece to re-start my sharing here. Chai (חי), which is pronounced as if you were saying "hi" in English, is a Hebrew word and symbol that means "life".

Chai is spelt with the Hebrew letters Het (ח) and Yud (י). The Hebrew letters of the word are often used as a visual symbol, frequently appearing on pendants and other jewellery. Chai also refers to the number 18. According to the gematria, which is a mystical tradition that assigns a numerological value to Hebrew letters, the letters Het (ח) and Yud (י) add up to the number 18. The Het has a value of 8 and the Yud has a value of 10. As a result, 18 is a popular number that represents good luck. At weddings, bar mitzvahs and other events Jewish people often give gifts of money in multiples of 18, symbolically giving the recipient the gift of "life" or luck.

In Hebrew, chai is often referred to in the plural form, chaim (חיים), hence the boy's name Chaim and the toast l’chaim (לחיים), which, as anyone who has seen Fiddler on the Roof knows, means "to life." 

Chai is heard in a BBC recording from 20th April 1945 of Jewish survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp five days after their liberation. This was the first Sabbath ceremony openly conducted on German soil since the beginning of the war. With people still dying around them, the survivors sang what would become the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah", "The Hope". At the end of "Hatikvah", British Army Chaplain Leslie Hardman shouts out, Am Yisra'el Chai! ("The people of Israel live!").

In the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest, which was held in Germany four decades after the Holocaust, Israel was represented with the song "Chai", performed by the Israeli singer, songwriter and actress Ofra Haza. The lyrics "Alive, alive, alive. Yes, I'm still alive" sadly resonate to this day. 

Should you be interested in purchasing a Chai papercut, just leave me a comment or use the email me button on the right hand side, below my social media buttons. Please be sure to note which colour backing paper you would like.

This particular papercut fits into a standard 8" x 10" frame with a mat opening of 4.5" x 6.5", though the size can be adjusted. You will receive this papercut UNFRAMED. The Chai papercut costs $40 + postage and packing.

* This post has been shared on Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop, Little Things Thursday and Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday).

'Aleph' is for Ayelet

It's been quite a while since I posted one of my Hebrew letter papercuts and this one is a tiny one! My good friend Ayelet was celebrating her 50th birthday. A group of us got together to mark the day and, rather than buying a group gift, our brief was to give Ayelet something that could fit into a matchbox! I decided that I wanted to make Ayelet a papercut, so that's what she got inside her matchbox, along with some sweet photos of our children together from over the years.

The Hebrew name Ayelet means deer or gazelle. It starts with the letter Aleph, pronounced ah-lef, and is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is written as א and spelled as אלף. This letter is actually the source of the Greek letter Alpha, as you can see by the similarities in the two letters' names, and the English letter "A" is therefore ultimately derived from Aleph as well.

In Modern Israeli Hebrew, the letter is sometimes silent (word-finally always, word-medially sometimes: הוא‎ "he", ראשי‎ "main", ראש‎ "head", ראשון‎ "first"). Its pronunciation varies in different Jewish communities.

The root of the word Aleph is also connected to many other words in the Hebrew language. The world "eleph," for example, means a thousand. The word "aluf," which also comes from the same root, means a (military) "general," or a "champion". The letter Aleph has connotations of greatness!

Since the letter Aleph is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, it therefore symbolises oneness and unity. In Judaism it is often associated with the oneness of monotheism. Every letter in the Hebrew alphabet also has a numerical value, or gematria, so naturally the numerical value assigned to Aleph is one. You may see this most commonly when the Hebrew year is written out. For example, last year, 2021, the Hebrew year was 5781 - תשפ"א. The Aleph in it represents the one. When an Aleph is used at the beginning of Hebrew years, it means 1000.

The Bible begins with the second letter of the alphabet, bet. There is a midrash (an ancient rabbinic interpretation of scripture) that says the letter Aleph is rewarded by being allowed to start the Ten Commandments. (In Hebrew, the first word is אנכי, which starts with an Aleph.) Aleph is also the first letter of the Hebrew word emet (אמת), which means truth. In Jewish mythology, it was the letter aleph that was carved into the head of the golem that ultimately gave it life. (In Jewish folklore the golem was a creature created by magic, often to serve its creator.) 

Ayelet also received one of my papercut cards on her birthday. I cut out her name in Hebrew letters and added the 50 to mark her age. As I have already mentioned, the name Ayelet means deer or gazelle. The name was taken from the phrase אילת השחר (ayelet hashachar), literally "gazelle of dawn", which is a name of the morning star. The phrase ayelet hashachar is found in the Bible at Tehillim 22:1. The entire verse reads: "la-menatzeaḥ al ayelet ha-shaḥar mizmor le-David."

Other related Hebrew name choices with the same meaning are Aya and Ayala. The masculine form of the name is Ayal.

* I have previously posted about the Hebrew letters Hey, Lamed, Mem, Nun and Resh. You can click on the name to read about each letter.

** This post has been shared on The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop, Crafty Creators Link Party and Creatively Craft Link Party.