Jewish Torah Scribe and Potter – Rabbi Bec Richman

Episode 60.
Bec’s many strands of deep Jewish beliefs and practice in Reconstructionist Judaism are woven through her creative expressions. Inspired during her rabbinic school years, she has since become a soferet (Torah scribe) and potter. She has also become a mother. Contrary to many people’s complaints about stress and conflicts between differing aspects of their lives, for Bec her scribal arts, pottery, and parenting feed each other, adding much richness and creative outlets to her life. Tune in to learn about the inspiration and experience, and how that creativity is inherently accessible, healing, and liberatory. 

Highlights:
·       Steeped in the Reconstructionist community since childhood.
·       Repairing Torah scrolls involves energy and intention.
·       Bringing Torah to life through hands-on experiences.
·       Living a life that is sacred, creative, connected to nature, and intertwined with others.
·       The impact of gender on Bec's work as a female scribe.
·       Integration of pottery, rabbinical studies, being a soferet, and motherhood.
·       Reconstructionist Judaism values tradition but welcomes evolution.

Social Media links for Bec:
Website – https://www.kotevetstudios.com/ 

Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066435622271


Transcript:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/14461216


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 


Comments?  Questions? Email  Méli at – info@talkingwithgodproject.org

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Chapters

• 0:05 Introduction
• 2:15 Bec's Jewish path
• 4:09 Being a scribe/Soferet STAM
• 19:01 Jewish law
• 20:47 Pottery
• 22:35 Rabbinical school, soferet, pottery studies
• 26:26 Creativity and creation
• 36:58 Jewish Studio Project

Transcript

Rabbi Bec Richman transcript

Jewish Scribe and Potter

Meli  [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more about that research and invite me to give a talk or workshop, go to my website, www.talkingwithgod project.org. This is episode 60, and my guest today is rabbi Bec Richmond. Bec, she/her, is a mama, soferet, or Torah scribe, and potter who serves on the faculty of the Jewish Studio Project. In addition to scribing sacred texts, Bec facilitates scribal arts workshops and participatory Torah repairs across the country. Her functional and conceptual pottery integrates hand carved Hebrew lettering, expanding the landscape of handmade Judaica and art. Bec also facilitates a Jewish mama's art art circle that integrates reflection and art making centered on mothering. Her art and facilitation are rooted in the belief that creativity is inherently accessible, healing, and liberatory. A graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, ship. Bec lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio with her partner and kiddos. Beck's artwork can be found at kotevetstudios.com. Hello, Bec. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I'm so pleased to have you on today.

Bec [00:02:05]:

I'm so grateful to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Meli  [00:02:08]:

I'd like to begin with my usual first question. What is your religious and cultural identity?

Bec [00:02:15]:

I am a white Ashkenazi progressive Jew living in the diaspora.

Meli  [00:02:22]:

And what denomination do you identify with?

Bec [00:02:25]:

I always say that I'm a Jew, and I sometimes practice Reconstructionist Judaism. Sometimes I'm part of traditional egalitarian communities, sometimes others. I most closely politically and socially identify with Reconstructionist Judaism, But I think what is most important to say is that I identify as a progressive Jew.

Meli  [00:02:45]:

How were you raised? Were you raised within reconstructionism?

Bec [00:02:49]:

I was. I was deeply steeped in reconstructionism and reconstructionist community and ideology. I grew up going to a Reconstructionist congregation, Adath Shalom Reconstructionist congregation in Bethesda, Maryland, and I, as a teenager, I began attending the Reconstructionist summer camp, which is now called Camp Havaya. I was there as a camper and then as a counselor, and it was at camp where I met my now longtime partner and got married. So deeply steeped in that world. And then I, as an adult, went to the Reconstructionist rabbinical college. I was the 1st camper from Camp Havaya to become a Reconstructionist rabbi, so can't really get away from it.

Meli  [00:03:33]:

You can't get much more steeped in it than that. So there's all kinds of interesting things we could talk about in terms of what reconstructionism is and and all of that. But we're here today to focus on really your journey of sorting out how the different parts of your life fit together. And specifically, I'd like to focus on your work in the scribal art and with pottery. Since I have a varied audience, I'd like to start by simply asking you to explain briefly what scribal arts means to you.

Bec [00:04:09]:

So I am a Soferit STAM. I am a scribe of ancient sacred Hebrew Jewish texts. STAM is an acronym for Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, Mezuzah. Those are 3 of the sacred texts that we, as scribes, write. The work of a scribe is to write and repair sacred texts, so that is part of what I do.

Meli  [00:04:34]:

How was it different for you experientially between riding, sofrei Torah from scratch versus repairing one versus writing a ketubah or other document?

Bec [00:04:50]:

That's a great question. Well, I have not yet written a sefer Torah on my own, the work that I do with Sifrei Torah is repair work. So one day, I'll come back on and speak to that. But I will say that I think that the difference between the that I have noticed from the text that I have written and the text that I have repaired. Right. When I'm writing my own text from scratch, there is a certain amount of energy that I feel like I get to put into That text, I'm putting my story as a scribe into it, and I'm holding an intention. If I'm writing a cloth, a mezuzah cloth, the parchment that goes inside a which hangs on the doorpost. If I'm writing it for someone and I know that they're in need of healing or if I'm writing it in memory or in honor of someone, I'm holding on to that as I'm writing, and I think one of my teachers, Rabbi Dov Lehman, always taught me to really keep those intentions in your mind when you're writing because they kind of become a part of the text. So there's an element when you're writing for yourself that's very much so bringing your own story in even as the writing itself is completely anonymous. And when I'm repairing a a text, I'm a when I'm repairing a scroll, the thing that I feel most palpably is my connection to The scribe or scribes who have had their hands on that text, who've had their hands, their role in making that work. I feel Just as much as the Torah itself is intergenerational and has been passed down, I feel like the project of an individual Sefer Torah, an individual scroll, is a living legacy and connective tissue that I feel part of, even if I don't know, and I never know who the scribe is, who has come before me. And I will say that I can't, in any of those experiences, separate out my experience as a woman as I'm writing.

Meli  [00:06:52]:

Yeah. Before we get into the gender element, I just wanna note, there's interesting tension that I'm hearing between the unique particular document and each Torah scroll is a unique holy document.

Bec [00:07:09]:

Yes.

Meli  [00:07:10]:

But at the same time, the letters and the placement must be exactly the same in every scroll. I hadn't ever thought about that tension.

Bec [00:07:22]:

True.

Meli  [00:07:23]:

Yeah. That's really interesting.

Bec [00:07:24]:

One of the questions that I get asked quite often when I do these scribal residencies in communities around the country, where I go to communities and I teach about being a scribe and writing and repairing work, and I often do community repair projects where people have the chance to repair with me. And a question that I get asked almost everywhere I go is, how long does it take to write a Torah scroll? And could a machine do it? And it's a good question because it takes a human, I would say on average from the scribes that I know, It takes most people who are writing full time a year and a half, 18 months to write a a sefer Torah. My colleague, Julie Seltzer, in a talk that she once gave, she's also a a and she has written Sifrei Torah. She, said that if a if a robot were writing at a steady pace, that that machine could write a safer Torah in a matter of 4 or so months, I think. But machines can't write sacred texts because one of the most important rules in writing As a scribe is that you have to set an intention before you write, that you're writing for the sake of the sanctity of Sefer Torah, Tefillin, Mezzuzah, whatever you're writing, you're writing for the sake of the sanctity of that specific text and project, And that any name of god that you're writing, you're writing for the sake of the sanctity of god. And so far, thank goodness for my own Parnasa, for my own income, computers can't hold that intentionality. So number 1, the project of writing is necessarily human, And I also think that it would be so boring if our Torahs were written by computers because they would look like printed texts. And part of the beauty of a scroll is that it is profoundly human, that it has its own you know, every aleph, even if even if a scribe is very exacting in their writing, every aleph is going to have some difference. Every shin is gonna be angled slightly differently, even the best, and most practiced of scribes. And that living, active, alive, lettering is so much a mirror of, I think, what it means to be human as is the reality that there there's so often times when letters crack or when you find an error because scribes are human beings. All of that is to say that the Torah itself is deeply connected to our humanity and to our experience in our own bodies.

Meli  [00:10:06]:

So that's a nice segue to the issue of gender. What is your experience as a woman being a scribe.

Bec [00:10:15]:

I'm not sure that there's been a time that I've sat down to write or repair that I haven't thought about my gender. And there's so much I can say about it, but I'd actually like to read a poem, that I wrote that I think tells the story out of narrative form. 

Meli  [00:10:31]:

Yeah. Please.

Bec [00:10:33]:

It's called In Her Hands. I dunk my body in an inkwell of water, ready my hands, my heart, my lips to speak words my ancestors spoke, wrote, past, told, buried. At home in the dark, intention pours out like easy rain, and the quill cut and ready dips in, gathers close, holds tight. Exhalation is whispering the words I will write, scratch of the quill on animal skin turned parchment, The low of the light, nothing more. They forgot to tell us to keep our shoulders down, to keep our hair pinned back, to keep our bracelets off to the side, to make sure the babies were fast asleep before we wrote. But I will not sign this work, each scroll a mystery of inheritance. Who wrote with a purple quill? Who wrote with bellies full of babes with breasts begging for release? Who wrote hidden? Who made their own ink stretched their own hides who passed on in hushed delivery. In the studio, I rebel, paint and write with what should not be ink, carve out letters, beg their emergence, impregnate Torah with my own birthing. Back at the mikveh, blue waters hold secrets. White space around black words too. Processed skin, Hair lines and splotches of color from a doe echo our voices and our bodies tuck us quietly into the telling.

Meli  [00:12:18]:

Thank you. It's really beautiful.

Bec [00:12:23]:

Thanks for the platform to read it.

Meli  [00:12:25]:

My pleasure. Really hear how how it weaves together so many different elements. Your life as a mother, your creativity, the scribal arts, the tactility of doing pottery and, of course, your deep and lifelong practice and learning as a Jew. It's it's beautiful.

Bec [00:12:53]:

Thanks. The texts about what It means to be a scribe and how to be a scribe were not written for women. Those texts were certainly written with the intention and thought that that it would be men who would be scribing. So I always am curious and longing for those missing sets of instructions even though to be a woman is not necessarily to Have a feminine identity or to carry babies or birth babies. Nonetheless, that kind of feminine experience, that kind of experience that so many women have is one that is completely, I would say unimagined in those instructive legal texts, and it serves me quite well spiritually to imagine what would have happened if those texts had been written for me, for my body, for my experience of writing with my belly pressed up against the table as I'm repairing a scroll with my baby kicking Inside of me, the table that I'm writing on. And I can't stress enough the power of the like it captures for me, it captures everything to be writing or repairing a scroll in my office while I'm listening to my baby in her bedroom downstairs going to sleep for a nap or waking up from a nap. The tug and pull between work and home, between art, creative work, and mothering, the aliveness of spirituality in my body, in my connection to my child, my children, and connection to the Torah, and the very much aliveness of humanity on the page and also in my own life. It's all right there.

Meli  [00:14:54]:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I would add to that the the meeting of carrying tradition into today and what today looks like.

Bec [00:15:07]:

Absolutely.

Meli  [00:15:09]:

I don't know that you wanna get into the politics of it, but I'm I'm curious whether there was a struggle to become a described as a woman. Were there prohibitions? Was was there a battle there?

Bec [00:15:24]:

I'm grateful to say no. And partly that's because I'm not trying to operate in an orthodox or more traditional world. The worlds that I'm scribing and communities that I'm scribing for are ones that are egalitarian, that very much value and prioritize women and women's voices and gender equality in a in an expansive way. And partly, I'm indebted to my colleagues who, over the last few decades, have really paved the way and made it possible for us to learn with and from each other. If a man wants to become a scribe, there's schools that he can go to. There's tests that he can take, certifications, and none of that is available to me as a woman. So the process for us for discerning when to call ourselves scribes is much more subjective and, honestly, communal among the small group of us who are women scribing and and working on sacred texts. Most of my teachers have been women, and that would not have been true 25, 30 years ago. And it's amazing to be able to learn from each other.

Meli  [00:16:38]:

So this is a a very recent development.

Bec [00:16:43]:

It is.

Meli  [00:16:44]:

Really. When you say 25 to 30 years, that that's a generation. Yeah.

Bec [00:16:49]:

It has not been long. My teacher, Jen Taylor Friedman, was the 1st woman to – the 1st woman who's known to have written a Torah scroll. She always says, I'm the 1st known woman to have written a Torah scroll. And when she said that to me when I began learning, I That is where the line in my poem comes from. Each scroll a mystery of inheritance. I like to imagine. I don't know if it's true, but it's if we didn't have the power of imagination, if we didn't let our imaginations run wild, we wouldn't have the texts that we have in the way that we have them today or the traditions that we have in the ways that we have them today. So I like to imagine that there are scrolls that women wrote that we didn't know were written by women. I'd like to imagine that women were writing in secret, and I think I think that's part of what Jen is saying is that we can't know because it maybe wasn't publicized or shared widely. Maybe it wasn't safe, and it certainly wasn't common. But that happened within the last couple of decades, so it has not been it has not been long.

Meli  [00:17:54]:

So you're not a pioneer, but you're in, you know, 3 rows back.

Bec [00:17:59]:

Absolutely.

Meli  [00:18:01]:

Yeah. Exciting. Exciting. And that's Just hearing you talk about that, Bec, I'm really reflecting on how biblical laws and cultural norms flow back and forth. So women being let out of certain requirements because they were expecting to be mothers and taking care the home and all that, so you're let out of that time dependent obligation then becomes a prohibition. And this this was in my mind in in asking you about that. So it sounds like there were not and there are not schools, and degrees, and what have you for becoming a scribe as a woman, but, likewise, there isn't a prohibition. It's just that if you were in orthodox circles, it would be impossible.

Meli  [00:19:00]:

Is that right?

Bec [00:19:01]:

Not exactly because it does actually say in Kesar Hasofer, which is the primary halakhic, the primary legal text, it does say that women can't be scribes.

Meli  [00:19:13]:

Okay.

Bec [00:19:14]:

But the – and this is not true for all of my colleagues. I I'm one of only a couple of people among the group of progressive scribes that I'm part of, most of whom are women, I'm only one of a couple of people who our Reconstructionist or practice Reconstructionism or part of Reconstructionist communities. But for me, that's where my Reconstructionist background and comfort with reconstructing comes very much so in handy. Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, is famous for his saying that the past has a vote but not a veto. So that's operative, which is to say that it matters very much the traditions and the texts and the laws that we have inherited and passed down, and we ought to be in conversation with them, but they are not everything. They don't necessarily contain the realities of our evolving religious, cultural, and secular lives that we are living. The reality is, as Kaplan said, he said we live in 2 civilizations, and I would say that we live in multiple civilizations. He was referring to the religious civilization and the secular civilization or the Jewish and the American civilization, specifically for him. But we live in these multiple civilizations, these multiple realities. I find it to be expansive and liberating and freeing an opening to both be in conversation with that tradition. Dafka, like, exactly write it down and pass it on and also expand it. Open it up.

Meli  [00:20:47]:

Yeah. Thank you for for clarifying that. And it does strike at the heart of so much of what I do. You know, this question of how are we living our beliefs, where is it showing up? Love the Kaplan quote. That's great. Alright. So on that note, let's shift to this other place where it shows up, your pottery. You spoke in in an earlier conversation we had about the tactility of pottery. Could you just tell me a little about why you do pottery, and have you been doing it for a long time?

Bec [00:21:24]:

I love working with my hands. I love getting messy, and I love the escape from intellectually focused space. It's not that there is not intellect in pottery. There absolutely is. But it is a work of the heart and hand and body primarily before it is of the mind. And that's a relief from the worlds that I operate in, which are filled with words and sounds and chatter and ideas and talking and dreams and yearning of production and of repair, and all that is good and important in its own way, and it's also exhausting. My draw to pottery is as much about the craft itself as it is serving a different part of my brain that so much needs space to roam wild and free. And I began learning pottery in 2017.

Meli  [00:22:23]:

Oh, not very long ago.

Bec [00:22:25]:

Not that long ago, but here I am with a full studio in my basement and a kiln, and it has been an amazing journey.

Meli  [00:22:35]:

So I wanna pause here and talk about the time line of your journey because now now I'm seeing things in quite a different way. Can you just run through for us the timing of rabbinical school starting to do your Sofrei Torah studies and beginning to do pottery. It sounds like it all kinda happened at the same time.

Bec [00:23:00]:

It did, and they were all integral pieces of one another. So I began rabbinical school in the fall of 2015. I started learning Safrut, in the very beginning of 2017 and the fall of 2017, I took my 1st pottery class when I was living in Jerusalem during my rabbinic studies. And I spent that year in Jerusalem split in half. Fortunately for me, RRC, the rabbinical school that I went to, allowed us really to design our own time and program, which for some people was a nightmare, and for me was absolutely what I needed. So I spent half of my time in yeshiva, half of my time studying Torah in a traditional context and half of my time in creative work. And of that creative work time, it was really split into 3 parts. 1 third of the time I was learning Safrut, I was really focused on traditional scribal arts. 1 third of the time I was focused on Hebrew calligraphy, learning a different kind of writing, a more modern kind of Hebrew calligraphy, and that final third was learning pottery. Ultimately, those 3 elements, the the first three elements of rabbinic training, Safrut, and pottery have become deeply intertwined and integrated. So the pottery that I make sometimes I make functional tableware, but the primary thing that I make is Judaica that integrates my Hebrew lettering. So I use an ancient surface decoration technique called sgraffito to carve Hebrew letters into my pots, And I make functional Judaica, so Kiddush cups, seder plates, all of that, and also more conceptual pieces and Art pieces using Hebrew lettering. What was so powerful about doing those pieces of learning together, the rabbinic studies, scribing and pottery was the opportunity to bring Torah to life through ancient lettering in my contemporary hand, both on the page and in clay, which is deeply rooted to the earth, this place from which we come, and in this form that is so much so emblematic of the human experience of becoming and and becoming again, of of recasting ourselves, of continuing to evolve and grow.

Meli  [00:25:25]:

What an amazing experience, and how fantastic that your school allowed for that free form the self determined path. I can appreciate how for some people it would be a nightmare, but, you know, for you. Clearly, it was fantastic. The other element that I wonder about and I'm guessing came later, but I try to be careful about the assumptions, is when you became a mother because in your poem, you spoke about that kind of creativity. So when did you first become a mother?

Bec [00:26:00]:

It was all happening at the same time. So midway through or 3 quarters of the way through my year in Jerusalem, I got pregnant. So my learning of scribing and pottery and Torah was all happening at the same time as I was just dating my first child.

Meli  [00:26:22]:

Talk about acts of creativity.

Bec [00:26:25]:

Absolutely.

Meli  [00:26:26]:

You know, creativity and creation. Right? These are these are connected things. The other element in this experience that I wanted to touch on, Bec, is you mentioned a moment ago about the intellect, the life of the mind and the noise of language, and we Jews are a very noisy bunch, and the restorative element. That's the word I'm putting in. Of the quiet time of the scribal arts and pottery. Yes. A bit of Torah that comes to mind is hearing God in the still small voice. Is this an experience for you? Do you feel that the quiet time in pottery and in various scribal arts, is a more spiritual moment?

Bec [00:27:22]:

Well, it is deeply spiritual for me, and I think I often am better able to sink into myself an inner reflective space when it is quiet or when I'm in creative modes of expression than in what is often thought to be the primary place of convening with the divine, which is in services or through Liturgy through our prayers. But for me, when I'm in a community singing space or when I'm scribing, or when I'm throwing a pot, or when I'm taking a walk outside in nature, that quiet, I think, allows something to come through that can get drowned out by the sound and the Hustle and bustle that otherwise is so much so present. And so I think it is as I'm saying this, I'm I'm realizing that actually part of it is also just the quiet, the solitude that is opening for me. Just spiritually for me, it might feel more obvious how scribing could be a spiritual experience writing ancient words of Torah. Right? I'm writing spiritual stuff down. Okay. Great. I'm activated on a good day, at least. With clay, you know, like, what about clay is connected to Judaism specifically or to the spiritual experience specifically. There's a pasuk, a verse in Jeremiah that says, just like clay in the hands of a potter, so are you in my hands, oh house of Israel. And in my most compassionate and open reading, preferable reading of that verse, I take that to mean that we are formable and re-shapable, that we are not necessarily fixed just as we are. Clay has to move through many, many stages before it comes to be a functional or usable finished product. There's the clay itself that where it comes from, the Earth formed into sieved and wedged into a soft form that can be thrown or built with. And as it dries, it becomes leather hard and then in its greenware state before its first firing ultimately has to dry out. And when it dries out, it it becomes bone dry, so dry that it's possible to have an even firing in the kiln. But before it gets put in the kiln, you can break down that piece. You can smash it up and reuse that clay. When you've thrown a pot in the wheel, the pot then needs to be trimmed. The base of the pot has to be trimmed, and that's where a lot of shaping happens. But all those shavings, those ribbons of clay, they don't just get thrown away. They get put into a reclaim bucket, and that clay gets rehydrated and then dried out more evenly and re-wedged. So that all to me is so deeply connected to the human and thus the spiritual experience of being not fixed, of being form and of matter and material, but being able to shape and reshape and cast even the things that we feel like are waste or broken into something workable, into something that can be built, and made beautiful again.

Meli  [00:31:06]:

To really the cyclicality of life and creativity, the forming, the developing, the redoing.

Bec [00:31:16]:

Yeah.

Meli  [00:31:17]:

And it's, you know, it's our experience as humans, as living beings, and it's the experience in nature. You know? That's what happens in the world whether we like it or not. And it's it's a very natural cycle that supports a connectedness to nature, as as you mentioned earlier.

Bec [00:31:38]:

I think my experience of being an artist in recent years is being willing and open to living in metaphor. And that is how I think I'm able to connect spiritually through tactile experiences to the divine.

Meli  [00:31:57]:

Our time is drawing to a close, and I'm realizing that we've had this really lovely conversation very focused on your internal experience, completely appropriate. But I'm also realizing that when we step back a couple of steps, there is an audience for your workshops. The people who hire you to write ketubot and repair their Torah scrolls. There's a community within which you live and operate. So I did wanna just take a moment here at the end to touch on that, to situate you within this larger whole. Who do you see your audience as being?

Bec [00:32:47]:

I'm glad that you asked me that question. When I was in rabbinical school, I applied for a lot of small grants and some larger ones to do these sort of innovative creative projects. And the person who is in charge of those specific grants always said to me, you need to get more focused. You're so like, you could be engaging so many different people here. You need to get focused. So that's always been a challenge for me. And it's tricky because my audience changes in different contexts. But I will say that in my scribal work, my audience is comprised of progressive and liberal Jewish communities, primarily synagogues. With my clay, I'm much broader, but mostly through my networks, engaging with Jews who want art in their homes who want their Judaica to be handmade and have a story behind it. And, broadly, I would like to think that my audience is made up of people who are appreciative of and guided by and opened by the freeing and liberating nature of craft and the arts, by the Jew who is remembering that we are not just a people of the book, but a people of the hand.

Meli  [00:34:14]:

Yeah. And fair enough. You know, I think that's a a reasonably clear set of audiences, and I think that makes sense. And, of course, for for things like you're talking about people who are about to get married. If you're doing, you're talking probably about people who who have a new home, maybe their 1st home, but maybe not. I mean, these are specific situations for specific items. Yeah. Fair enough. If I may, to challenge you a little more on this, what are you hoping to achieve with all this? What's what's your overarching intention?

Bec [00:34:57]:

I long for people to feel free and healed and liberated and to live in a beautiful world. My favorite law in Keset HaSofer, in that primary legal text for scribes, says that even after the fact, you can't tell what a Torah was written with. When you look at a scroll, you have no idea what the quill looked like. All that you could discern was the width of the nib of the quill. So even though you can't tell what the quill looked like, it says, nonetheless, the quill should be it should be nice it should be nice looking. So you don't strip the feather entirely of its soft parts that make a feather look beautiful. You leave some on, not because it functionally aids the quill or makes much of a difference, but because it's beautiful. And I think that Inscribing and in working with clay, I am trying to expand access to Torah help people bring Torah to life through their hands, not just through their minds. I'm hoping that in so doing, I and we are making the world more beautiful, both in the visible and palpable, perceptible ways and In the quieter, less public ones.

Meli  [00:36:15]:

Yeah. And I'd say amen to that. I see art as a necessary luxury.

Bec [00:36:21]:

And a necessary balm and a necessary outlet and expression and fundamental piece of what it is to be a human being. We are fundamentally creative creatures. And when we give ourselves space to create, to use our hands, to use our bodies to make. We are living into ourselves, living ourselves into being whole.

Meli  [00:36:49]:

And perhaps living ourselves into the sacred.

Bec [00:36:54]:

I would say so.

Meli  [00:36:55]:

And living the sacred into daily life.

Bec [00:36:58]:

Yeah. You know, I know we won't have time to get into this today, but something that we didn't talk about is I am on a faculty of the Jewish Studio Project, which is an organization based in Berkeley, California. And one of the fundamental principles guiding pieces of Torah is that we are inherently created creative. So in the beginning of Torah, it says that when God was creating in the beginning. So the Torah opens with God as a creative force. And then a few verses later, we are told that human beings are made in the image of the Divine. So if we're made in the image of a divine creator, then we too are created creative. Those are the words of my colleague and mentor and teacher friend, rabbi Adena Allen. I think it is fundamental to being human. I think it is part of what helps us to become whole and is itself a pathway to liberation and is inherently and profoundly sacred.

Meli  [00:37:59]:

So it's not just about a functional life, but it's about a life that functions and is sacred and is creative and is intertwined with nature and beauty and and each other.

Bec [00:38:14]:

Please, God. Yes.

Meli  [00:38:16]:

Amen. Well, Bec, this has just been such a lovely conversation. Thank you again for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast.

Bec [00:38:26]:

Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure, and I I'm particularly grateful for the ways that you've asked your questions. They are conversations both before today and during our conversation today really have been opening in a a special way for me, so thank you.

Meli  [00:38:42]:

How can people learn more about what you do?

Bec [00:38:45]:

People can learn more about me and my work, by visiting my website, which is kotevetstudios.com. So kotevetstudios.com. And Kotevet means she writes.

Meli  [00:39:04]:

Great. I'll make sure that that's in the show notes. Well, I wish you much continued creativity and success and connection with the divine. Thank you again so much for coming on.

Bec [00:39:19]:

Thank you so much for having me.

Meli  [00:39:24]:

Thank you for listening. If you'd like to get notified when new episodes are released, hit the subscribe button. Questions and comments are welcome and can be sent directly to info@talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Transcripts are available a few weeks after airing. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. For more information about that research, including workshop and presentation options, go to my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. Thank you so much. Till next time.