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As told to Leah Gebber

I

t was an ordinary message that came through my website: We were both ostensibly strangers. Her youngest son was getting married she wrote and she wanted a handmade kesubah for the chasunah. They always write that their youngest. It’s like their way of warning me that their emotional barometer reads dangerously high. It also means that while with their other children they economized this time they want it done right. And right means a custom-designed hand-illustrated kesubah the text written by a sofer. Parchment no less.

I felt a little thrill. There’s a special joy in creating a unique piece allowing your work to reflect that expansiveness inside. In letting myself experiment with design inks perhaps even some gold leaf.

I suggested setting up a conference call with her and the chassan and kallah. No go: this was a surprise gift — she’d deal with me directly. A little unusual but okay. Then as I took down her details little sparks of memory flashed in my mind.

This wasn’t just another ubiquitous Feldman. This was Feldman from Pine Grove. And this was the youngest Feldman a boy. It all fit.

I knew them. Well not her — her husband alav hashalom. Years before at least 20 years earlier he had taught me science. I remembered him. Oh how I remembered him the teacher I tortured relentlessly cruelly for a full year.

It wasn’t the subject. Many claimed that science was irrelevant to them but I never felt that way. Although my present work may seem set firmly on the art spectrum I’ve studied the chemical makeup and properties of different inks: adding wood tannin to black ink and different pigments to colored ink to produce a pearl or jewel effect. Science is not so far from me.