Torah Mantle

Although the Talmud (250-500 C.E.) mentions the use of beautiful silks to wrap the Torah scroll (Sabbath: 133b), the form that these coverings took is unknown. Our earliest knowledge of their shape comes from late medieval manuscript illuminations. A depiction to the synagogue on the eve of Passover in the Sarajevo Haggadah, a 14th-century Hebrew manuscript from Spain, shows a member of the congregation closing the Torah ark. Within are scrolls dressed in mantles whose hems flare outward to form a skirt. Sephardic Jews continued to use mantles of this distinctive form wherever they traveled after their expulsion from Spain in 1492-to Holland, Turkey, Italy, and other countries. According to its inscription, this example was dedicated by Asher Anshil, son of Abraham Schoehoff (Andries Abraham Schoelhoff), and his wife Havah Hevi, daughter of Wolf Reintel (Eva Benjamin de Joseph). Both the donor and his father-in-law served as parnassim, officials, of the Amsterdam Jewish community. The final line of the inscription is a chronogram for the year 1771/2. "May I wholeheartedly follow Your laws" (Ps. 199:80); "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life" (Prov. 11:30).
Eighteenth century French brocade forms the major portion of the mantle. The use of expensive imported materials is characteristic of textiles made for the Torah, and signifies the reverence in which the sacred Scriptures are held. What distinguishes this mantle is its complex iconographic program, largely embroidered on an inset panel of red velvet that forms the front. Two themes are presented. One derives from a saying in the Ethics of the Fathers: "There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of royalty..." (4:17). Three appliqué crowns embroidered in silk and metallic threads illustrate this maxim, two on the front, and the third, on the back. The second theme implicit in the representation of two symbols of the ancient Temple, the menorah, or seven branched candelabrum, and the table of shewbread (below the dedicatory inscription), is the belief in the coming of the Messianic Age and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Its inclusion links the decoration of this mantle with the more extensive Temple iconography of eighteenth century Torah curtains and valances.