Challah for Parashat Hukkat
Slaughtering the red heifer.
Every week, Julie Seltzer, artist and Torah scribe, bakes a challah depicting an aspect of the week's Torah portion.
They will bring you a red heifer. (Numbers 19:2)
וְיִקְחוּ אֵלֶיךָ פָרָה אֲדֻמָּה
The red heifer, whose ashes purify the impure, is about to be slaughtered. When the "slaughtering" (ie, cutting of the challah) took place following the hamotzi blessing, we discovered that the neck bled from the cut--a bright red beet was baked inside!
Julie Seltzer is a scribe, baker, and artist. She began creating challah art at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Connecticut, where she lived until recently. Julie now resides in the Bay Area, where she is writing a torah scroll at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.
