By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
In 2002, the Women’s Torah Project thought it would take a year, maybe 18 months to hire a female Torah scribe to complete the task of writing the first scroll in modern history to be written exclusively by a professionally trained woman scribe.
Now, eight years after her initial “aha” moment, Wendy Graff, director of the WTP for the Kadima Reconstructionist Community in Seattle is finally seeing that dream come to fruition. Later this month, Kadima will hold a celebration of its Torah with the presence of five of the six Torah scribes and six of the eight artists who have since signed on to the project for a four-day community-wide celebration.
“It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Graff told JTNews. “The panels are still not all together. Half are in Israel. The first time they’ll all be together is Oct. 13, when we will assemble them.”
Many of the sofrot, or scribes, are flying in from such far-flung locations as Jerusalem, Brazil, and Winnipeg, while others in the U.S. are arriving from San Francisco, New Jersey, Georgia and Texas to deliver or reunite with their portions of the 62-panel Torah.
Then, with the help of all who want to participate, they will begin the time-sensitive work of sewing each of the panels together before the culminating Shabbat celebration, when the Torah will be used for the first time on Oct. 16.
“We’re going to have six stations for sewing the panels together,” said Graff. “We will also have all of the embellishments on display so people can see the accoutrements, and there will be an art sale during that time with pieces made by the artists and the scribes.”
Traditionally called a siyyum, which means a celebration or a completion of a study, the WTP is inviting the whole community meet the women scribes and artists, listen to a lecture on Oct. 13 by Rabbi Yohanna Kinberg of Temple B’nai Torah,
Kinberg, who has long been upset about the treatment of women who wish to read Torah at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, said she is delighted about the completion of this Torah.
“The fact that this Torah was written by women from all over the world, including in Israel, seems particularly significant,” she said. “In our community we’re making sure women are taking steps forward.”
On Oct. 16 the project will hold a panel discussion with the women who created the scroll and its accoutrements.
Kadima member and longtime artist Sooze bloom deLeon Grossman made a reversible, pomegranate-seed-motif Torah mantle with one side that will be used during the High Holidays; the other side will be used during the rest of the year.
bloom deLeon Grossman works in fused and slumped glass as well as hand-dyed and embellished textiles.
“For me this is kind of a ‘Cosmic Project Runway,’” bloom deLeon Grossman told JTNews from her home on Vashon Island. “It’s like trying to make the most wonderful wedding dress a bride could ever have, so that when the veil is lifted, the ark is opened and the people see her they will have, again and again, that feeling all bridegrooms should have — that “Aaah, my beautiful beloved is here!”
Donors to the Torah project were given the opportunity to contribute a piece of cloth that once belonged to a grandmother, daughter, or mother, and have it placed on the mantle as one of the seeds.
“When folks send us pieces of fabric…we can become downright weepy to see the bits of a child’s pajama, a bride’s regalia, a favorite summer dress, a tallis, or a disintegrating bit of table cloth, or a hanky,” said bloom deLeon Grossman.” These come with names, dates, pictures and stories that make me laugh and sigh and cry.”
Linda Coppleson, who joined the project in 2008, is a teacher at a Conservative Jewish day school in New Jersey, where she teaches Torah and rabbinics. Coppleson trained with the late Torah scribe Dr. Eric Ray, and has continued her studies with Jen Taylor Friedman, one of three panel checkers who oversees the accuracy of each of the Torah panels.
Coppleson said it felt like a natural fit for her to combine her calligraphy talents with her Torah skills.
“Perhaps the biggest change in me since working on this project is that I no longer feel the need to justify myself as a soferet,” Coppleson told JTNews, using the Hebrew word for a scribe. “I have written all of Bamidbar (Numbers) some of Devarim (Deuteronomy) and about 8 columns in Vayikra (Leviticus). As long as I continue to write in the spirit of the tradition…then I feel that I am part of a very special community of Jews who love Torah.”
Artist and Kadima member Lois Gaylord, who is on the WTP committee, is weaving the bima or podium cloth on which the Torah will sit.
In June 2010, Gaylord earned a certificate in the University of Washington Professional and Continuing Education Extension’s Fiber Arts Program.
“As soon as I heard about this project, and that women artists were creating embellishments for it, I knew I wanted to be a part of it,” Gaylord said. “The Torah seems much more ‘real’ to me now, it is no longer an unapproachable mystery to be viewed from a distance.”
Though there had been hope that this would be the first Torah to be completed by women, that honor went to Taylor Friedman, the panel checker, who completed the first Torah for a congregation in St. Louis in 2007.
When Graff first undertook this project, she said she received a few e-mails from irate male critics who said that a woman should be at home with the children, and not busy writing the holy scriptures.
Instead of putting her off, however, those writers more likely steeled Graff’s resolve to follow strict traditional rules as prescribed by Jewish law for making a “kosher” Torah.
Graff invested a lot of her time to learn about kosher ink and parchment, and the special sinew required for sewing the panels together.
“The scribe must use 20 turkey-feather quill pens, about three bottles of special ink, and two rolling rods,” according to the group’s Web site, along with “silver or gold-plated needles.”
The appropriate metals must be used for all of the ritual objects and embellishments that adorn the Torah and each panel must be checked by an expert source before it can be used in the scroll.
When asked if the process has impacted her own Jewish identity, Graff said that it had an effect on her.
“I do feel closer to Torah,” said Graff. “I have learned a ton of esoteric knowledge about how Torahs are made, and more about what’s in the Torah. It’s made me think about our relationship to our text.”