Obj. ID: 39395
Sacred and Ritual Objects Shiviti plaque, Shiraz, 1893
The following description was prepared by William Gross: The Shiviti plaque takes its name from a phrase in the Psalms, "Shivit Adonai Lenegdi Tamid". "I will always hold the Lord before me." During morning prayers the 67th psalm is read as a part of the liturgy. The making of such visual pages to augment the reading started almost 500 years ago. It began because of a particular story or legend. The custom relates that if one gazes on the form of the Menorah while reciting the Psalm, or reads the psalm written in the form of a Menorah, the person is carried back to the Temple, standing before the golden Temple Menorah itself. To complete the illusion, some of the Temple implements were often illustrated. The mysticism of the idea is clear, and the Shiviti page is often filled with Kabbalistic abbreviations as well as the Menorah form. Sometimes, depending on the size and complexity of the image, other texts read during the time of prayer are also presented on the sheet. Such pages appear as small sheets to be inserted into a prayer book and taken out when the psalm is recited or as large pages to be hung on the wall of the synagogue for the viewing by the whole congregation. The sheet was also used on the wall of a home or Sukkah. Later still, the Shiviti could be printed in the prayer book or painted on the wall of the synagogue. There are numerous examples of both the prayer book tradition and the wall plaque tradition in the Gross Family Collection.
The largest Shiviti in the Gross Family Collection, this example is highly unusual in that it is painted on cloth. It is filled with Kabbalistic inscriptions and in its overall form is very similar to many of the silver Shiviti amulets from Iran also in the Gross Family Collection. It was placed on the wall of a synagogue, and the congregants would gaze on the shape of the Menorah as they recited Psalm 67. There is mystical tradition that gazing on this Menorah shape during the saying of this particular psalm will transport the person to standing before the golden Menorah in the Temple in Jerusalem. The seller of this Shiviti says that he brought it from a synagogue in Shiraz, where it hung high on the front wall of the space.