Hevruta or Mituta - Chess game

Inspiration

The work “Hevrutah or Mitutah” stems from the conceptual and visual analogy between ‘Hevrutah’ learning in Beit HaMidrash (House of Study) and chess competitions. In both situations, two students/players confronting each other on a logic level, until a decision is taken. In both situations, pairs of contestants (male) sitting at a table in front of each other, in vast halls.

The Talmud tells us about two Chachamim – Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish – who had been studying together in a ‘Hevrutah’ for many many years, until one day Resh Lakish fell ill and passed away. When Rabbi’s Yohanan students saw how broken he was because of this loss, they tried to help him and found him a new ‘hevrutah’. So they sent to him the wisest man in town. A few weeks later, they met Rabbi Yohanan in the street, and he looked very sad. His students wondered and asked him:” What’s wrong, Rabbi? How come you still look sad although we found you as partner the wisest man in town?”. And Rabbi Yohanan answered: “He sure is intelligent...Whatever I say, he finds 24 proves and endorsements...yet...when I used to study together with Resh Lakish, whatever I said he would quickly present me with 24 difficult contradictions! This is what I miss. I need a friend who criticizes me. This is how you study the Torah...”

Design process

measures: chess board, 63X63 , cm. 32 knitted skullcap (“kipah – sruga”)

The skullcaps were hand made by the female students of the “Aviv” college in Tel Aviv. In recent years, more and more women have had access to higher education religious colleges that used to be the domain of male yeshiva students. No industrial production of knitted skullcaps is possible: they are strictly handmade and require quite some work to make. Usually, women knit these skullcaps while they’re studying, traveling by train or doing any other daily activities.

Exhibitions

2012 'Matronita' Feminist Jewish art . Museum of Art, Ein Harod, Israel

2011'Judaica Twist', Beit Ha'Tefuzot museum, Tel Aviv

2009-10 'Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life'.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco.

The Jewish Museum, NYC

2007 'four design groups' Ha'Hava' gallery, Holon