On February 7th and 8th, I shared with the Edot class how by the year 750 C.E., most Jews were living in countries controlled by Muslims. We learned how the religion of Islam was founded by Muhammed, and that originally Muhammed borrowed a lot from Judaism for his new religion. Muslims were ordered not to eat pork, and to fast on Yom Kippur. But because most Jews refused to agree to convert to Islam, Mohammed ordered his armies to kill them or force them out of territories he conquered. He ordered Muslims not to face Jerusalem when they prayed, but instead to face the City of Mecca, located on the Arabian Peninsula. Now, instead of fasting on Yom Kippur, Mohammed ordered his followers to fast for an entire month – the fast of Ramadan.
Fortunately for the Jews, after Mohammed died his followers, the Caliphs, established warmer relations with the Jewish communities living in their countries. Jews remained second-class citizens, having to pay a special tax to the Muslim rulers, but they were not persecuted by most of the early Muslim rulers. By the mid-700’s, Jewish communities had been established all along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, along the shores of North Africa, the Middle East, and even as far west as Spain, and as far east as India and perhaps even parts of China. Nine out of ten Jews at this time lived in Muslim-ruled lands.
Jews in these communities maintained their Jewish identity by reading from the Torah and other Jewish religious texts like the Mishna and Talmud, and by following Jewish rituals and the commandments. But they also borrowed a lot from the Muslim communities in which they lived. They saw how beautiful the Arab Muslims decorated their palaces and other public buildings with calligraphy – the art of using letters for decoration – and how they painted the color blue on buildings and graves and other important objects, to ward off evil spirits.
One of the first ideas that Jews began to borrow from the Arab Muslims, especially in the Middle East and North African countries, was that of using amulets – charms that could ward off evil spirits. Jews, of course, believe that God will protect us. But in the Arab Muslim lands, they began to also use amulets to protect women during pregnancy and childbirth – when women were considered to be very vulnerable to evil spirits hurting them or their unborn child. Soon a specific amulet – the Chamsa – was used everywhere in Jewish homes.
Chamsa is the Arabic word for the number 5. In Hebrew, the word for 5 is “chamesh,” so you can see how close the Hebrew and Arabic languages are related to each other. According to Arab Muslim belief, the daughter of Mohammed, whose name was Fatima, was killed as she fought to help spread Islam. They believe that her hand was cut off during the fight, and it rose above the battle scene to bless the Muslims and curse the infidels. The Chamsa is in the shape of a hand to reflect this story.
When the Jews began to use the Chamsa, they gave it a “Jewish twist” by decorating it with Jewish symbols such as the tree of life, the Magen David (Jewish star), the Hebrew letters, “chet” and “yud” which spell the word, “Chai” meaning “life”. But they also borrowed symbols from the Arab Muslims, often putting an eye in the middle of the palm to protect against the “Evil Eye” – evil spirits. They also decorated much of the Chamsa, as the Muslims did, with geometric and floral shapes.
One of the important ways that Judaism and Islam are related is that the Muslims follow many of the commandments in the Torah. The second of the Ten Commandments states, “You shall not make for yourselves sculptured images, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Exodus 20:4-5) This commandment was meant to keep the ancient Israelites from bowing down before idols. But both Jews and Muslims began to believe that it was commanding them never to make any likeness of God – and because we are told in the Book of Genesis that God created man in God’s image, Muslims were forbidden to draw humans or even animals. Instead, they decorated their art with geometric shapes and with floral designs.
On Sunday, February 12th, each Edot student began the process of making a chamsa out of copper foil. Even though the general form of a chamsa is that of a hand, there are many variations. Some have the thumb close to the rest of the hand; others have the thumb sticking out, and perhaps the little finger sticking out as well. Some were designed to be hung with the fingers facing up and others with the fingers facing down. Some were simply the hand form, and others had beads attached to them. Beads are also used by Muslims to ward off evil spirits. Supposedly, the spirits like round shapes and enter them, then get lost going around and around in them, and can’t escape to hurt anyone. Again – this is a belief in magic, and has nothing to do with what Judaism or Islam teach.
As always, the process of creation is just as important as the end result. The students quickly discovered that engraving and embossing copper tin is hard work. They were advised that "if your hands don’t hurt and your mind isn’t numb from constantly focusing on what you are doing, you are not honoring the artist! All artists work hard physically as well as mentally to create their masterpieces!" Here are some photos of our Edot artists hard at work, and apparently enjoying the process!
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