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In Jewish tradition, the command to “bind them [God’s words] as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead” is understood as requiring passages from the Torah to be written on…
These are modern reconstructions of the Ark of the Covenant. Chests with images on top and with carrying poles are known from ancient Egypt. The depictions of the cherubs here are based on winged…
The back of this brass Hanukkah lamp from Morocco is adorned with birds and a row of keyhole-shaped windows. The ring at top is designed to allow the lamp to be hung outside on a doorpost, a custom…
This photo shows a reconstruction of the cella, or inner sanctum, of the Arad sanctuary as it is thought to have appeared in its last phase. At the rear stands a 35-inch-tall (90 cm) pillar of…
Though he later turned to a more abstract style, Elbert Weinberg was still making figurative sculptures in the early 1950s, when a trend toward pure abstraction was already dominant. But Ritual Figure…
This basin from Kuntillet Ajrud is much too large to have been used for a practical purpose—it weighs more than 300 pounds (136 kg) and is large enough for two adults to sit in. The inscription…
Simeon Solomon’s Carrying the Scrolls of Law, like other pre-Raphaelite paintings, explores the themes of spirituality and religious devotion. Solomon also explores the beauty of the young man…
In Ashkenazic communities, circumcision benches with two seats were sometimes used from the nineteenth century on, one for the sandek, the godfather on whose lap the baby boy is circumcised, and one…
This ewer and basin from Turkey were used to wash hands ritually during the Passover seder. Owned by the Benguiat family, a large and prominent Sephardic family in the Ottoman Empire, the objects…
In the new religious revival, the theologians and philosophers have it easy; they can battle about the nature of revelation endlessly in the pages of Commentary. Parents and householders, on the other…
