I love the story behind this commissioned mezuzah by Ketzirah of Embroidered Prayers. She says,
I’m always really afraid of these types of commissions because I’m never sure if I can manifest what someone is looking for. In this case the only requirement was that there needed to be a duck. Yes, a duck. I was stumped for a while about the angle, but then I thought of two things — my love of Cattails and how they could easily be shaped to look like the letter shin, and that there is a bit of Torah about birds and nests.
Deuteronomy 22:6 says that you can’t take the eggs from a nest a mother bird is on or near (mitzvah of shiluach ha-kan) in the wild. It’s one of the positive commandments towards compassion, so I call this one “Model of Compassion.” The cattails form a subtle letter Shin. In my design the mother bird isn’t sitting on her nest, but she is carefully watching over it.
How could the person who commissioned this piece not be pleased–with the design concept and with its lovely execution. Well done. See more at Ketzirah’s blog.
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