Description
The text presents Marge Piercy’s 1989 poem “Meditation on Reading the Torah,” reprinted with the permission of Penguin Random House, accompanied by the Hebrew alphabet printed in Franzisca Baruch’s Sephardi revival typeface Schocken-Baruch (on the scroll) and in Monotype’s Ashkenazi revival typeface Ashurith (on the cover). The papers used for the scroll and cover were hand-made over thirty years ago by my uncle Jonathan Browns (1961-2023), who studied papermaking at the Papeterie St-Armand in Québec before working as Public Art Officer for the City of Ottawa.
The Torah scroll might be considered not just a book, but an ancient ritual technology. In the liturgical life of Jewish communities around the world, the Torah scroll embodies the encounter with Divine wisdom and ancestral connection. Its power is captured by Marge Piercy’s poem, which describes how the Jewish people “have borne our scrolls tenderly as a baby swaddled in a blanket,” and invites us to “take up the scroll of Torah,” opening ourselves to its light. In paying homage to the “people of the word,” this book draws a physical portrait of how wisdom is transmitted and transformed as it journeys with people across time.
