When United Hebrew Congregation’s Torah Alive! Committee selected Lucy Foxman to design and create their high holiday Torah covers, they got more than just a talented artist. “The quality of her work really differentiated her from the other artists,” Rabbi Howard Kaplansky said. “She grasped what was unique to our congregation and had a great willingness to talk, think and work with us to develop a concept for our covers.”

Foxman was chosen from among several candidates to create covers to replace the current well-worn ones. The members of the committee picked her because of her reputation in the community and because they knew about the Torah covers she did for B’nai Amoona a few years ago.

“We had seen her work and knew it was beautiful,” Julie Gibbs, director of development at United Hebrew, said. “One of the goals of the Torah Alive! project was to involve as many people in the UH community as possible so we thought it would be really meaningful to have a member create the covers.”

The congregation is writing a new Torah and is involving members in scribing words on the new scroll.

Foxman wove her studies of Scripture and other readings with fine silks and threads to create covers that symbolically tell a story from front to back.

“I want people to see that the more they look at the work the more they’ll get something new out of it,” Foxman said. “Even the quilting that’s in the silk is entirely based on various writings. Everything that’s involved in every thing I did for these covers was based on Talmud, Mishnah and other readings. I didn’t just do an artistic design, but created work that has meaning.”

One example of Foxman’s incorporation of meaning into the smallest details is the direction of the flame of the candles on the menorah.

“The flames are angled slightly to the right,” Foxman said, “to show the wind which, according to Psalms, represents spirit. And this spirit is what sustains the world.”

Foxman’s interest in interpreting readings into tallit, pillow covers and Torah covers began several years ago. At the time, B’nai Amoona was writing their Torah and asked her to create their High Holidays and Shabbat covers. She’s been a textile artist for 30 years and her interest in Judaica began over 10 years ago.

The process for producing the covers for United Hebrew began with a drawing.

From the drawing, Foxman created hundreds of pattern pieces — just one wing of the Shechinah has around 40 pieces. She used appliqu é and quilting, with meaning and purposefulness in the direction of the quilting.

“The quilting represents the seven heavens,” Foxman explained. “A life is coming down, which is justice, and repentance is at the bottom. The seven heavens are represented by seven vertically stitched sections.”

During the Torah writing sessions, the covers have been on display for the scribes to look at.

“People are really moved by them,” Kaplansky said. “They say that Lucy really captured the personality of our congregation and the sense of the High Holidays.”