Paper Midrash in Stockton, Birthplace of the Fantastic Four

Another great weekend, this time at Temple Israel in Stockton, California! And another great batch of photos to share with you, so you can see the incredible art we created with this congregation! We spent the weekend talking about this week's parasha, Vayigash – in which Joseph reveals himself to his brothers – and we talked about secret identities in Torah (and comic books).

Friday night we presented "Secret Identities: Super Heroes and Torah Heroes"
and Saturday we started our papercutting workshop with our "Intro to Midrash."

I love these pix – using windows to transfer designs from regular paper to watercolor paper.

We turned a roomful of congregants into papercutters!

Rabbi Shawna giving a little guidance to a workshop participant

Some of the final artwork was inspired by the parasha, but very personal as well

Beautiful work exploring Judah's part in Vayigash, created by a workshop particpant

A papercut about reconciliation, one of the parasha's themes

We always end workshops with time to share our work with each other

Rabbi Jason Gwasdoff at work on his paper midrash

Cantorial Soloist Lindy Passer with congregants at work on one of the four community tallitot we made

Having fun getting messy, making tallitot!

Local celebrity Mel making his mark on the Etz Chaim tallit

Painting in the atara for a community tallit

"Shirat HaYam" community tallit

"Vine and Fig Tree" community tallit

"Who Orders the Universe" community tallit

Our papercutters with their finished paper midrash artwork

Part of our community tallit team with the "Etz Chaim" tallit