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.
