spirituality
Artist's Take
Talmud study enhanced by drawings made
for each day's lesson.
Edmon J. Rodman
JNS.org
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44 June 13 • 2013
n a journey into art and text that
will take 71 /2 years to complete,
Jacqueline Nicholls is drawing
the Talmud — one page each day.
Last August, in conjunction with the
beginning of a new 7 1 /2-year cycle of daf
yomi — the daily study of a double page
of the Babylonian Talmud observed by
tens of thousands of Jews worldwide —
Nicholls inaugurated an online "Draw
Yomi" project that day-by-day results in
a hand-drawn response to what she has
studied.
"Here I go. Full of optimism and hope
that I will not be defeated by the daily
discipline of learning:' the London-based
Jewish artist wrote on her blog to initiate
the project.
With drawings of a human heart, a
scorpion and the Hebrew word "Amen:'
Nicholls introduces and explicates the
often-arcane world of the Talmud.
"Drawing is a way to slow down and get
the brain to take a different path:' she told
JNS.org.
After several months, that path — avail-
able for viewing on her website,
drawyomi.blogspot.com — has illumi-
nated with graphic and thought-provoking
drawings of a world of Jewish law, story-
telling and contemplative thought that
had previously been limited mostly to the
word and textural study.
In Nicholls' illustrations — each illus-
tration is accompanied by a reference to
the text on which she bases the illustra-
tion — Talmud study shifts to the visual
as Hebrew letters anthropomorphize into
fists, and a human skull helps to illustrate
"the blessings on all the weird and won-
derful things in the world:'
As a kind of warm-up to Draw Yomi,
Nicholls had earlier created a drawing a
day for the 49 days of the counting of the
Omer. As it turned out, she missed the
ritual of sitting down to draw every day.
"I like the immediacy and deadline she
said.
To create her illustrations, Nicholls, who
describes herself as a traditional Jew, first
studies the double page portion to get a
"sense of what's up on the daf (page)" and
to search for a theme she can illustrate.
Sitting in her studio, she limits her
time for the drawing to 30 minutes. "I
use a kitchen timer; she explained. "The
drawings are not a finished piece of art —
more like a sketchbook," added the artist,
who in September had a showing of her
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With raised fists, Jacqueline
Nicholls' interpretive Talmud draw-
ing also takes on social issues.
previous artwork at the Laurie M. Tisch
Gallery in Manhattan.
Nicholls said she has found that draw-
ing is not only a process of study, but also
a "way of taking the daf out of the yeshi-
vah:'
Moving even further from the yeshivah,
Nicholls, who studied anatomical art and
medical drawing, does not shy away from
illustrating the female form. For example,
to illustrate a daf that she interprets as
being "all about life and babies:' she illus-
trates a pregnant woman in position for
childbirth.
Each week, to further explore the text,
Nicholls invites a learning partner to add
another voice to the ongoing Talmudic
conversation by engaging in chevruta
— the time-honored method of Talmud
study where two students bounce ideas,
questions and interpretations off of each
other.
New Way To Study
"She has changed the medium for com-
mentary," said Rabbi Deborah Silver,
who has been one of Nicholls' chevruta
partners. "She holds up a particular kind
of mirror to the text. I've known her for a
long time, and this is her language:' Silver,
assistant rabbi at Temple Adat Ari El
in Los Angeles, studied with Nicholls
before she began the Draw Yomi project.
Silver explained that the drawings are
a "springboard" serving to "take the con-
versation deeper, quicker; showing a more
concentrated view of Nicholls' thought
process.
For instance, to illustrate a daf on what
it means to forget, and specifically to
A woman with the top of her head
missing in a depiction of a daf
(page) from Tractate Shabbat in
the Talmud
forget Shabbat, Nicholls shows a woman
missing the top of her head. "Is forgetting
the same as never knowing?" the artist
writes on the page.
To capture a Talmud page on waiting for
Shabbat to be over, Nicholls shows a clock
overseen by three stars. On the belief that
crying can cause blindness, she draws a
tearful smoldering eye.
If there is humor in the text, Nicholls
shows that, too. To illustrate a page that
likens a city to a person with limbs, we see
an animated town with bent arms, car-
toony fingers, even a couple of feet.
But to illustrate another page of Talmud
that speaks of "cities that are dangerous to
enter if you are from the wrong neighbor-
hood," Nicholls's buildings grow angular
and, with raised arms, look ready for a
fight.
After more than half a year of the proj-
ect, Nicholls has received interest from
several quarters, including "a fairly right-
wing Chasidic chap:' and others who are
approaching daf yomi using social media
and international conversation. There has
even been interest from those wanting to
buy the drawings.
In May, Nicholls was invited to serve as
a scholar and artist-in-residence at Lincoln
Square Synagogue in Manhattan, where
she presented the Draw Yomi project and
heard comments from people who had
been learning daf yomi for years. She said
she was "pleasantly delighted" by the feed-
back she received.
At this stage of the Draw Yomi project,
Nicholls knows "a couple of people who
like my art, check in and see my draw-
ings quite regularly and have now started
learning daf yomi themselves:'
"What she does is jump the language
barrier; Silver said.
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