82 | MARCH 30 • 2023
ARTS&LIFE
BOOK REVIEW
J
oshua Skarf has a strong convic-
tion that “whatever we work in
can only be used to enhance the
Torah.” He maintains that his specialized
knowledge in his profession — archi-
tecture — affords him a distinct angle
from which to view topics throughout
the Torah. And he backs
up that conviction in
ArchitecTorah, a book
of 178 short essays that
invite readers to look into
a passage of the Torah
from that angle.
Everywhere Skarf
looks, the Torah assumes
we know about struc-
tures: tents, houses, civic
buildings, altars, temples,
cities with zoning regula-
tions, cemeteries, hydrau-
lic systems, instruments of war and
peace … and everywhere he looks, Skarf
has knowledge to deepen our under-
standing of all those structures.
Skarf does not let his vast knowledge
get in the way of telling the story. Each
of the essays fits into two or three pages
of lively prose, clearly written for a gen-
eral audience. He marshals evidence
from one end of rabbinic literature
to the other, from classical studies of
architecture, and from the most mod-
ern scholarship —always scrupulously
showing his sources. When he does use
a technical term — not often — the term
illuminates our understanding, and he
explains the term in plain English.
“The second half of the book of
Shemot details the crafting of the
Mishkan and its vessels,” Skarf observes;
yet for all that description, readers have
trouble creating a clear picture of those
subjects. The ancient rabbis report that
Moses himself could not understand the
descriptions. Skarf reports that “ekph-
rasis,” defined by the Oxford English
Dictionary as “the use of detailed
description of a work of visual art as a
literary device,” almost never suffices
to convey the image of a structure. For
this reason, designers have since ancient
ArchitecTorah is a delightful book of essays
geared toward general readers.
The Intersection of
Architecture and Torah
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Meet Joshua Skarf
Author Joshua Skarf grew up in the
Metro Detroit Jewish community. He
describes major influences on his
study of Torah, includ-
ing time as a student
at Akiva (now Farber
Hebrew Day School).
“In 1997, when
I was a senior at
Akiva, I remember
my father taking me
to a Siyyum HaShas
[celebrating complet-
ing the study of the entire Talmud] …
It sort of captured my imagination, so
I went to school the next day and told
my Talmud teacher, ‘I am going to start
Daf Yomi [learning one two-sided page
of Talmud every day]).’ And he said,
‘Good luck, but it is not going to last
more than a couple of days.’”
Skarf continues, “He was
right to say that because it
was nothing more than bra-
vado to think that I was going
to do that, but I have been
doing it for the last 25 years.”
During those years,
Skarf graduated from the
University of Michigan,
began a career as an archi-
tect and moved to Israel. At
some point while he was
doing Daf Yomi, he started
keeping track of the various sugyot
[Talmudic discussions] that were archi-
tecturally related.
“I actually did that with the Bavli
and Yerushalmi [the two versions of
the Talmud], with all of the Midrash
Halakhah and with not most, but a
good deal of the Midrash Aggadah.”
The daily page of Talmud gives more
of a broad, rather than deep, under-
standing of rabbinic literature, so Skarf
began devoting his free mornings on
Friday — the day off in Israel — to a
more profound investigation of top-
ics that interested him. Over time, he
sorted these topics by each week’s
Torah reading and wrote his findings
into a few short essays of two or
three pages for each parshah. In the
course of 18 years, this project became
ArchitecTorah.
Joshua Skarf
ABOVE: View looking up through typical Roman Ionic and Corinthian columns