A yearlong creative process culminated Sunday, Oct. 6, when a new set of striking, custom-designed and handcrafted Torah mantles were dedicated during Simchat Torah services at Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah.
“What better day to offer the Torah scrolls new mantles than on Simchat Torah, the day that revolves around the Torah,” says the synagogue’s Rabbi Roberto Graetz. “This is an artistic rendition that hopefully enhances the way in which we approach Torah in the life of the congregation.”
The newly-completed tapestry mantles feature a Star of David motif. The weaving blends 80 shades of brilliant colors, encompassing the entire spectrum of light. “In a metaphorical way, we’re bringing a rainbow into the temple,” explains Yael Lurie, who conceived the design.
Lurie and husband Jean Pierre Larochette, the Berkeley-based team commissioned to do the work, attended the morning service.
The mantle’s bold colors were selected to brighten the interior of the modern sanctuary, which features much wood and many tall windows, but no competing color schemes.
Joining in the celebration were members of the Torah mantle committee, led by Karen Fiske, who spent many months of preliminary research before selecting the Lurie/Larochette Studio from a field of artisans. The committee visited several Bay Area synagogues to view similar projects and considered commercially-produced Torah mantles that the congregation had used.
This time, however, they opted for a much more durable product, since tapestries can last for hundreds of years.
They studied the Torah mantles of Lurie and Larochette at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco and Temple Sinai in Oakland, and in August 1995 Temple Isaiah awarded the commission to Lurie and Larochette.
The design stage involved several visits to the sanctuary and discussions among the artists and Graetz, Rabbi Judy Shanks and members of the Torah mantle committee. Lurie praised this creative process, saying each person’s ideas were respected and enhanced by their colleagues.
To Graetz, “a sanctuary should reflect the grandeur of creation and the intimacy one can acquire with God.” He wanted the design to incorporate these themes and, during one of the meetings, opened the Scriptures to Isaiah. The Hebrew words Nachamu nachamu ami (“comfort, oh, comfort My people”) seemed to leap off the page.
That became the theme around which the series of Torah mantles was designed. The Hebrew words themselves are woven into the largest Torah mantle, forming a spiral which, in Lurie’s words, “will return on itself,” embodying the meaning of the expression.
Once Lurie completed her artistic renderings, the couple selected the colored threads that would translate the drawings into tapestry. Larochette took over at this stage in the process, using weaving skills passed down through several generations in his family, which was originally based in Aubusson, France, a noted tapestry center.
No cost was spared in obtaining the finest moth-resistant strands of thread. Larochette crafted the weaving off and on for over six months.
With the project completed, the couple has mixed feelings: There’s a tinge of sadness in parting with such an extensive creation whose vibrancy has brightened their studio these last several months, they say. But they are also delighted to help enrich the spiritual life of Temple Isaiah.