Bringing rituals to life and lives to ritual
From experience, she anticipated the tears. She knew that the moment the cloth was torn, the crying would commence. So she looked at Nancy, and before taking the scissors to the material she paused and asked, “Are you ready?”
Nancy took a deep breath and nodded in assent. Only then did Amy begin cutting the lace away from the satin. What was once Nancy’s bridal gown more than three decades earlier now looked like a tablecloth. And Nancy cried.
Amy the counselor comforted her. She assured Nancy that her reaction was normal, and that only a happy marriage could yield these tears. As she spoke her words of consolation, Amy the designer seamlessly moved the lace to a long narrow table and held it in place with a six-foot ruler. She noted how remarkably pristine and strong the lace was, and how much of it was salvageable. Just a few seconds and several snips later, what lay before us had been transformed from a mere remnant to a magnificent wrap.
Amy the teacher’s questions now came fast, teasing out Nancy’s reactions, drawing out her emotional connections to the significance of tallit, to the ritual of prayer, to family, to life cycle and to legacy.Amy the artist held Nancy’s responses and guided her through the creative process. After considering several connections to the number four, Nancy decided that the four corners of the garment would bear the names of our four sons. When Nancy shared that she had designed graphics for each of our son’s bnei mitzvah depicting the season of their celebrations, Amy suggested that we incorporate the graphic into each satin corner along with their names. The occasion on which they each first wore tallitot as adults would thus become a part of Nancy’s ritual every Shabbat and holiday.
The garment is not actually a tallit until its fringes are affixed. Within a matter of a couple of days of our meeting with Amy in Needham, Massachusetts, we received word that the project was on its way to our home, with two fringes yet to be tied. Perhaps the two sons “tying the knot” in the months ahead, along with their fiancées, will each have a hand in tying the remaining knots of the tzitzit to render the tallit “kosher.”
Some people grab a prayer shawl off a rack and toss it around their neck as a matter of custom. Some people choose a tallit for the way it hangs on their shoulders. Amy Lassman is a guide, teacher and artist who connects a potentially perfunctory ritual with time, emotion, memory and dreams. Amy, you are Bezalel, a visionary who thinks deep thoughts, who gives birth to holy moments and holy creations, who constructs sacred spaces under the wings of the Divine Presence. You have given my family a new pathway into our tradition. You have reshaped my family’s story, possibly for generations to come. And though you may not have earned a formal degree towards that end, you are my rabbi.
Thank you. I hope you don’t mind if I share your Torah with the world.
Check out Amy Rosenstein Lassman’s work at adardesigns.com.
Two Rabbis, One Voice, Three Opinions 
Recent Comments