Illuminated Manuscripts

Each person chose a word or phrase from the Shema / V’ahavta prayer and created a gorgeous work of art, decorating the Hebrew letters using all kinds of interesting materials of different colors, designs and textures.

What really happened:

A: We learned about the Jewish custom of turning words into works of art.

Why, of all the visual arts, is this one so important in the Jewish tradition? The answer reflects the depth of the Jewish love and respect for texts.

Rabbi Helen and Danielle brought piles of books and artwork showing examples illustrated texts. People broke into groups of two or three and chose a couple of illustrations to examine closely. Did the artist try to show some deeper meaning through the way they chose to decorate the words? Or was their goal simply to create something beautiful?

B: We studied some text in order to choose our words to illuminate.

We opened the Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 6 and read verses 4 through 9. We discovered the source of the Shema and V’ahavta – a passage that most of the students were able to recite from memory, but few had ever really studied in depth. We broke into groups of two or three, and each group got a little bag containing the entire passage cut up into separate words. They did their best to put it together in the right order.

We assembled in a circle and studied the passage in translation. We read it phrase by phrase, trying to ask as many questions as possible, to figure out why this paragraph is so important to the Jews. Here is a snippet of the discussion that stuck with me:

We read: You shall love Adonay your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
and with all your means.

Someone asked:  What happens if you don’t?

At first, everybody thought she meant, What is the punishment?

But what she really meant is this: How can you be commanded to love God? How can you make yourself love God if you don’t already?

The discussion was rich, and many students participated. Two students bounced ideas off each other to come up with this proposal about what the prayer really means: Through the course of your life you can try to become the kind of person who does love God.

After our discussion, each person chose a word or phrase from the Hebrew that they wanted to illuminate.

Here is the text that we used to study the Shema, word by word, phrase by phrase, idea by idea, in Hebrew and in English:

C: Everybody created a gorgeous work of art based on the Hebrew letters of their chosen text.

Here are some examples we showed the students. These illuminations of words from the morning prayer service are the work of my colleague Rabbi Me'irah Iliinsky: