By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Not until Aviel Barclay’s hand was crushed in a devastating bicycle accident did she find that it would be her hand that decided her destiny.
Still harboring an inner vision she kept alive since the age of three — to scribe a Torah with her own hand, letter by letter — Barclay, a 35-year-old convert to Orthodox Judaism, overcame her injuries and will finally realize her lifelong dream. This Canadian artist and calligrapher will scribe the first Torah ever to be written by a woman. The project was commissioned for Kadima, Seattle’s oldest progressive Jewish organization.
“I broke into a sweat,” said Barclay, recalling the moment she received the phone call from long-time friend Rabbi Fern Feldman at Kadima, telling her she would be hired for the job. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do my whole life.”
The partnering of Kadima, a community dedicated to social justice and diversity, with the first known female Torah scribe seems to be a perfect match. Feldman believes that a female-scribed Torah may attract even more women to Jewish ritual and leadership.
“This Torah physically being produced by a woman means that women are actually connected to the Torah in a way that they have never been before,” said Feldman. “A lot of the imagery in the Torah is female images, but the text of the Torah focuses on men more than women. This will open up the connection for women.”
Barclay, who had already focused her talents into making Judaic art, calligraphy and Ketubot, spent six months reading Jewish texts while recovering the use of her hand.
“I had always been drawn to Jewish observance and Judaica,” said the Victoria College of Art graduate, who has also worked as a gemologist and candle maker. “After my hand was crushed I was quite helpless and couldn’t do anything, but I felt like God really smartened me up and set me on the right path.”
In order to learn the highly specialized and ritualistic art of scribing a Torah, in Hebrew called a sofer (or soferet in Barclay’s case), Barclay had to find a teacher, another sofer who would consent to take her on as a student within the male-only profession. Because Jewish law is said to strictly prohibit women from writing a Torah, she needed to be as cautious as Yentl while undertaking her study. Six years ago she made her move.
“I met my sofer on the Internet,” said Barclay. “He’s an Orthodox Jew who lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children. He agreed to take me on as a student, so I went to Israel to study with him.”
Barclay says that both she and her teacher felt they risked their physical safety by working together. The pioneering Jewish artist recalls the verbal harassment becoming so intense that she kept her precious instructor’s identity a secret.
“When I lived in Israel I was threatened and they threatened my sofer,” she said. “The first Yeshiva I was in was extremely hostile. They spoke in very intimidating ways and wanted to know his name and where he lived. So I moved to different Yeshivas quite a bit.”
Running out of funds to continue her study, Barclay came back home to Canada where she continued to work on her own art. She let her Jewish community know she was ready to accomplish this historic task. All she needed was the right opportunity.
Six years later, in 2003, in the midst of a fundraising campaign to purchase its first Torah, Kadima revived a previously overlooked idea to have a woman write one for them. That’s when Feldman remembered her friend.
“Aviel had put the word out that she wanted to write a Torah but no one had asked her,” said Feldman. “To me it’s extremely historically significant, because it has never been able to happen openly before.”
The Women’s Torah Project organized by Kadima members raised the additional money needed to send Barclay back to Israel this past August to complete her training and receive her certification. They are also continuing to raise funds to support her as she works to complete the project by late 2004.
“We were all surprised that this had never been done before,” said Neal Sofian, a Women’s Torah Project committee member. “This was a case of a barrier that hadn’t come down. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the Torah that’s out there, but this is an opportunity to speak to the core values of what Kadima is all about. It’s a clear statement about how Kadima values gender equity.”
The Project hopes to bring Barclay down to Seattle from her work in Vancouver, B.C. for community outreach and education projects.
“It is our intention to make this [Torah] available to individuals and groups,” added Sofian. “We’re also very much interested in making this available to other congregations.”
To find out more about the Women’s Torah Project or to contribute to the fund visit www.kadima.org or call the Kadima office at 206-547-3914.