TORONTO — An observant Toronto artist and soferet (scribe) is restoring images of women while adding contemporary meanings to a classic biblical text with her illuminated Megillat Esther.
Esther approaches King Achashverosh in Laya Crust’s megillah
Commissioned by Rabbi Shalom Schachter and his wife, Marcia Gilbert, Laya Crust’s ornate, often whimsical full-colour megillah is on display at St. Michael’s College’s Kelly Library until June 18.
Beyond the megillah’s brilliant illuminations, Crust – an experienced calligrapher – “spent one to 1-1/2 years practising sofrut,” perfecting the techniques before putting quill to parchment.
Achashverosh at his feast early in the story.
Traditionally prohibited from writing Torahs, mezuzot and tfillin, women may write megillot and ketubot. Crust, a member of the Mizrachi Bayit congregation, spent one month on the text, using an extremely difficult page layout in which 11 of 16 columns begin with the word hamelech.
For the illuminations, Crust drew on her experience working with clients. “I try to use imagery that brings my client into the piece,” says Crust.
Gilbert agrees. “Laya really gets to know you as a person…it was exciting to see some of the personal stuff.”
Rabbi Schacter and his brother Joseph used to dress up as scheming guards Bigtan and Teresh, so Crust painted them into the megillah, with a tiny pair of glasses for Joseph. Gilbert and Schacter appear, as do their children. Crust is there, too, as a scribe, writing letters to send throughout Achashverosh’s kingdom.
The personal touches add to the sumptuous Persian-inspired illustrations. “I love the foliage lines. It’s opulent and wonderful – I didn’t want to stop,” says Crust.
Characters wear authentic 16th-century Persian dress, with a tallit for Mordechai. In one scene, he wears the rainbow tallit created by Rabbi Schachter’s father, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Crust also painted Gilbert’s mother, Esther, who was buried on Purim a decade ago.
To bring the characters to life, Crust asked herself, “What were they thinking, feeling?” One scene shows a sleepless Achashverosh in bed, leaning peevishly on his pillow, bags under his eyes, worry lines across his brow, pyjamas endearingly dotted with tiny moons and stars, while Haman lurks outside the door.
Crust, an award-winning artist who has also worked in clay, fabric and glass, has created more than 500 ketubot, many of which are available as prints on her website (www.layacrust.com). As a religious soferet, she said that she’s proud to “join a line of history of sofrim going back thousands of years.”
For Crust, the message of the Book of Esther is to stand up against hatred. The page on which the 10 sons of Haman are listed depicts 10 figures who represent antisemitism and evil throughout history – from Pharaoh to Queen Isabella to Hitler.
Standing up includes gender rights, and Crust included women in almost every scene. In one, Vashti turns her back on male courtiers. The hem of her dress shows a neat row of tiny “female” symbols, a Renaissance astrological reference to the planet Venus.
After leaving St. Michael’s College on June 18, the megillah will likely be shown in other museums, and then it will return home to be stitched together and put away to be read and enjoyed next Purim.
For more information about the exhibit, contact Marcia Gilbert at 416-636-0500 or Leslie Belzak of St. Michael’s College at 416-926-7286.
