I’m taking a break from studying for – what else – my Judaism and Feminism term test to bring you a post on the beautiful work of illustrator Ilene Winn-Lederer, whose book Between Heaven and Earth: An Illuminated Torah Commentary I ran across when I happened to be in Indigo last week. I haven’t been able to get her illustrations off my mind: they so enraptured me that they’ve really been helpful spiritually as well as simply being beautiful (let no more be said about Jews and aniconism); they remind me of what the divine in humanity looks like, if one really looks. (Maybe this is a little woo woo. Too bad. My new age tendencies exhibit themselves very rarely, so I think you can handle it.)
"A Balance of Powers," by Ilene Winn-Lederer
Because illustrating the entirety of the Tanakh (or even just the Torah) would be pretty much an impossibly huge task, it’s understandable that Between Heaven and Earth takes selections from each of the five Books, choosing verses here and there as representatives of the text as a whole. The result is a glimpse into the world of the Torah, and while the book is thick and full of gorgeous images, it still leaves you wanting more, and more.
An illustration on the prohibition of tattooing. Property of Ilene Winn-Lederer.
The artist also does delightful, clever pieces on subjects other than Judaism, like the one of this Thom Yorke-ish hipster:
Property of Ilene Winn-Lederer
Winn-Lederer runs the Magic Eye Gallery and has a blog, Imaginarius, which you can find linked to the right in my blogroll. You can buy Between Heaven and Earth: An Illuminated Torah Commentary at Amazon, as well as some of Winn-Lederer’s other books.
