Isabella Freedman: How did you first get involved with Isabella Freedman?

Julie Seltzer: I like this story. In August 2006, I was at Elat Chayyim in Accord, NY for the annual Storahtelling Training. They were getting ready to move Elat Chayyim to the Isabella Freedman campus, and I signed up to help carry the Torah from Accord to Falls Village. The first time I saw Isabella Freedman, I was arriving there with the Torah!

IF: When did you make IF your home?

Julie: That same year, I went for Yom Kippur, Sukkahfest and the Silent Meditation Retreat with the Coopers. At the time, I was living and working in NYC, but looking for something different. I thought maybe I could come up to the retreat center for a few months and figure out what my next step would be.

I emailed and asked if I could volunteer as a dishwasher. The way things worked out, I did housekeeping for a little while, worked in the kitchen, and was then offered a job as a Sous Chef. At that point, we were buying challah and baked goods, but nobody was baking. So I said, “Give me one chance to make challah for a retreat and let’s see how it goes.” And with that I became the baker. I actually prefer cooking to baking because baking is more of a science… but I eventually made it into an art with my parsha challah.

IF: The “parsha” is the weekly Torah portion, but what is “parsha challah” and how did it start?

Julie: During the first Kohenet retreat, Jill Hammer asked if I could bake a special challah for the women in her group. I made a challah in the shape of an ancient goddess figure. One week—I’m not sure why—I ended up shaping a challah based on an image from the weekly Torah portion. It was a jeweled breastplate. I’ve been making parsha challah every week since then.

IF: So you brought your baking into the realm of Hebrew letters. Is this how your interest in sofrut (Hebrew calligraphy) began?

Julie: I’ve always been obsessed with Hebrew letters…I love all aspects of Hebrew: grammar, wordplay, gematria, root meanings, stories about letters. I started teaching an informal class to the IF residents. Then, in December, 2007, I took a trip to Israel. I was walking down the street and it hit me: I am going to learn sofrut...

As soon as I got back from Israel I found Mordechai Pinchas’s website. He’s a well-known sofer (scribe) in England, but I didn’t know who he was at the time. His website shows the formation of the letters in real time, so you can see exactly how each stroke is done.

I had absolutely no experience with calligraphy—or even drawing or painting. I actually had no real experience with visual arts. I had done theater, but I was always searching for “my art.” I had done the Artist’s Way when I arrived at Freedman, so I had been actively wondering, “What is my art?” I think a lot of people sense that they are artists, but don’t really know what medium to explore. Sofrut was already in full swing before I realized it was my art.

Luckily I knew Hebrew already and I had been learning Torah. But then there’s all the halacha (laws) around Hebrew lettering, so I wanted to learn more. But when you’re a woman, and you want to learn this stuff, there aren’t many teachers. You seek out other women because you know they’ve learned somehow, and if you connect with them, you can learn as well.  So I connected with Jen Taylor Friedman, a British soferet who is working on her third Torah in Riverdale, NY. We started meeting in the once a week in spring ‘08. By summertime, I had enough basics to continue learning on my own.

IF: Did you learn anything that surprised you?

Julie: Well, it didn't exactly surprise me, but the very first law in the classic halacha is: “Here are the people for whom if they write a Sefer Torah it will be invalid…” Women are on that list.

IF: As a woman, how do you reconcile that?

Julie: I definitely went through a period of wondering whether I should just write megillot (scrolls). But I am not orthodox, and there is a whole egalitarian movement, filled with people, congregations and communities that will not only accept the work that I do, but who are eager for women to be a bigger part of the holy writings process that wasn’t open to them in the past.

IF: So now you’re on exhibit as a soferet yourself, writing a Torah in public, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. How did that happen?

Julie: I continued studying with Jen Taylor Friedman while I was living at Freedman, and I took a trip to Israel to learn with Shoshana Gugenheim, who helped start the Women’s Torah Project.  Eventually I moved back to NY, and worked with a well-known reform scribe, Neil Yurman, doing Torah repairs and eventually writing panels. I sent Shoshana a sample of my work, and she said I was ready to write for the Women’s Torah Project. And then Jen told me that the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco was looking for a Torah scribe to sit in the museum and write a Torah, and she thought I would be a good fit. I thought, “Are you kidding? On display?” I wasn’t sure at first. The truth is, I was nervous about the idea of writing it in public.

IF: How public is it?

Julie: I’ll be in one of the exhibit rooms, writing for 12-14 months. It’s actually a rare opportunity for a scribe to work in public and have so much contact with people who are interested in learning. Usually you’re alone in a studio or at home. People are curious. This is an amazing opportunity to interact and talk to people about Torah.

IF: Is there a blessing that you say before you start scribing?

Julie: Yes, at the beginning of every project, I say “I am doing this writing for the sake of the sanctification of… a mezuzah, a Torah…” or whatever I’m about to start.

IF: Do you wear special clothes?

Julie: No. Well, I dress nicer than how I did in the bakery at Freedman. But mostly, I just dress modestly. And I’ve started covering my head—not because I’m married; I’m still looking!— out of respect for the tradition.

IF: How does it feel to be an installation in a museum exhibit?

Julie: It comes with the accompanying jokes, such as the “Please do not feed the scribe” sign. People seem to be quite amused by the prospect of looking at me in a cage, even though it’s not actually a cage, or even a glass-walled box. It’s a room. There’ll be designated time each day where I’ll do Q&A and other times where visitors can look but not talk.

IF: What will happen with the Torah when you’re finished writing it?

Julie: Oh, this is awesome. They’re going to ask for submissions from emerging communities around the world, to have the Torah for a few years. It’ll travel. And I hope to travel with it.

IF: Can you imagine sofrut and other forms of art being brought to Isabella Freedman?

Julie: I would love to see an artists’ collective—like Ein Hod in Israel—a place where artists can live and work and sell their art, or do performances, in connection with the retreat center and its bookstore. The artists could offer workshops to people who are coming on retreat, such as an hour of ceramics or painting or scribing. There are so many ways for art to happen at Freedman. I could see coming back, to help manifest this vision.

IF: How did the IF community nourish the artist, the scribe, in you?

Julie: Well, first of all, there are geese, which provide feathers, which become quills for writing. Second, there’s a lake, which provides a mikveh, which provides spiritual elevation.

IF: Do you have any Torah blessings that you’d like to share with the IF community?

Julie: Last Simchat Torah, I was at Kehilat Romemu in NYC. We unrolled the Torah and stood according to our astrological signs. We randomly pointed to verses near where we stood, and those became our verses for the year. I think this is a great way to connect to the whole Torah, by finding one line that speaks to you. (My line happened to be: “And the inheritance will go the daughters.”)

There is a sense that the Torah is this holy thing that you have to be careful around, but for me, holiness means that you actually need to get closer to something. When you write a Torah, you can’t be wearing gloves; there can’t be any barrier between your hand and the writing. So my blessing is that people find their place to connect—and come closer— to Torah.

Photos by Lea Suzuki and Bruce Damonte