Of Lions and Basketballs
"The lions!" He cried. "It's all because of the lions!"
What bitter tears did he shed. "If only I would have known, I would have never gone for the lions!"
IT ALL BEGAN WITH TWO LIONS
Flashback a few weeks earlier. There I was, sitting in the downstairs showroom where I was employed as a parochet designer. The gorgeous showroom, featuring two glistening chandeliers shedding their light on walls adorned with impeccably embroidered parochets... that was a real wow of a showroom! Our story begins at 7 pm, October 28, 2008. I had been employed by the world famous Judaica company, rikmat hamalchut, for about three months, was newly married, lived in a new city, with my parents 5000 miles away and was just trying to get through the day, so to speak. As I was an English speaker in Bnei Brak, I was awarded the coveted evening-shift position that none of the other graphic designers wanted- I was the Kessler to the English-speaking world that had the nerve to wake up 7 hours later than us! While i stole a glance at the ornate clock from time to time and finished up some odds and ends on the computer, the phone rang.
"Hello, Rikmat Hamalchut." That was my standard hello.
"Hi," the voice on the other end of the line was accented, but I could not tell what. The number on the caller display revealed that this person lived in New York. "My name is Moshe Cohen. I live in New York. My dearly beloved father passed away and I would like to donate a parochet in his memory. I go to synagogue once a week."
"I'm sorry to hear about your father," I replied. "Have you seen the designs on our website?"
"Yes, yes. There is one that stands out to me every time I look at it. It begs to hang in my shul. Honestly, my father passed away ten years ago and I have been saving up money for the past eight years, $50 here, $30 there. Now," his voice rose triumphantly, "I finally have enough to memorialize my father."
"That's wonderful. What design do you want?"
"The one with the lions. With a passuk on top, a crown and luchot in the center, and a lion standing on a pillar on either side."
"Sure thing. Just give me the size of the parochet and I'll email you a mockup asap."
THE PAROCHET IS HUNG FOR THE FIRST TIME
Well, what do you know. Four weeks later, Mr. Cohen ran to shul on a Wednesday afternoon even though he only attends on Saturdays, with the package the UPS guy had just handed him. Ripping open the parcel, heart racing, he removes the parochet and hangs it up in the Aron Kodesh before the congregants arrive for the morning prayers.
Gorgeous. Breathtaking.
And then his Rabbi walks in, takes one look at it and demands, "What is this? We do not allow lions on a parochet in a Sephardic synagogue!" And that brings us back to the beginning of this story, when Mr. Cohen, actually Kohanzadeh, cried about the lions.
Thank G-d, my boss was very gracious about the whole incident and exchanged the embroidered lions for embroidered flowerpots.
But that taught me and all my coworkers an important lesson:
A parochet designer must be a detective. Yes, a detective.
HI, WHAT’S YOUR EDAH?
What do I mean? I must figure out what Edah the other person on the line is. Tact is the main tool. You never want to come right out and say, "Hi, what's your Edah?" No, you ask for the name of the synagogue and the Rabbi's name. That usually gives me a great indication of whom I'm dealing with.
Ever since that episode over eight years ago, I have B"h gone on to be head designer at that company and have now founded my own company. It's always interesting to meet the customers who Nadva Libam to donate a parochet to a synagogue.
WHY DONATE A PAROCHET?
There are two main reasons for donating:
Grandparents often enjoy dedicating a Torah mantel in honor of a grandson's bar mitzvah. That's the happy reason. But then there’s the mother who lost her son in army training, or the grandmother whose son, a young father, just passed away, or a young husband whose wife suffered from a deadly illness. One mother from Rechovot, whose 19-year-old Noam passed away in the army, would come for hours on end, a few days a week, to pour out her soul and tell us all about her dear Noam.
So it seems that a parochet designer must also be a sensitive friend.
THE TURQUOISE EVENING GOWN
But there’s a third requirement for all parochet designers, one that probably gets overlooked. Let me tell you about it:
“Here it is!” Plop! A well-dressed man of about sixty walked into the showroom with a briefcase in one hand and a Zara bag in the other- and immediately plopped them down on my desk. Rummaging through the Zara bag, out he pulled a turquoise Swarovski crystal-bedecked evening gown. “This was Varda’s favorite dress.” He looked away, probably to hide his watery eyes.
“How can I help you, sir?” I wondered why he had brought an expensive gown to a parochet showroom.
“I want you to make a parochet out of this dress.”
My coworkers and I exchanged glances. Was it halachicly permissible to use a woman’s dress on a piece of velvet that covers the Aron Kodesh?...
And what about the sporty young Tel Avivi man who just loved Kabbalah and wanted us to embroider Hashem’s 72 Holy Names onto a Torah mantel?...
Or the parents of a young fun-loving boy who insisted on having a bright orange basketball embroidered on a black Torah mantel in his memory?...
I ran to a few of the foremost poskim in Bnei Brak several times to clarify the halacha and receive guidance on how to steer misguided customers to more suitable designs for Tashmishei Kedusha.
So a parochet designer also must know when and how to ask a Shayla, and have a competent Rav to ask.
TRANSFORMING THE VISION
And that brings me to the fourth and final requirement, which is the most obvious: a parochet designer must know how to take a customer’s vision and transform it into a breath-taking physical parochet!
Not once, and not twice, has an Aron Kodesh designer called me up with a ‘vision’ he had dreamt of that would complete the atmosphere of the shul. Bsiyata dishemaya I have managed to translate even the most ambiguous ‘visions’ into breathtaking works of art.
BLENDING TWO PROFESSIONS
I find it interesting to note that my paternal great-grandfather was a Rabbi in northern Morocco. He was also a school teacher and a shochet who would prepare the klaf from the cows he shechted and write Torah scrolls. All this to earn a living b’Kodesh. However, his son, my grandfather became a very successful fashion designer in Casablanca and later in Montreal, and owned several clothing factories. I now feel that Hashem has guided me to a profession where I can blend the two professions and create beautiful custom-made designs that are used in the synagogue!
Featured lions photo: <a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/lion-and-lioness_946265.htm">Designed by Bedneyimages</a>