by Michael Patrick O’Brien
There are few better examples of living water than the Red Sea. In the Book of Exodus, God delivers the people of Israel through those very waters after four hundred years of Egyptian bondage.
Perhaps that’s why it seems so perfect to me that the Mikveh used for Jewish ritual bathing at a Salt Lake City synagogue includes a lovely stained glass window featuring a Red Sea sunrise.
Of course, as a Catholic, I’ve never bathed in the Mikveh at Congregation Kol Ami. I did learn about the window, however, when I visited the Utah studios of the artists who created it—Tom and Gayle Holdman.
The couple own Holdman Studios at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. Their beautiful glass art beautifies some two hundred Latter-day Saint Temples as well as Protestant churches, Catholic churches, and the CommonSpirit Catholic hospitals.
When I visited the studio, Tom told me they made a window for the Jewish synagogue in Salt Lake City. Over the years I have had many friends from Kol Ami, so I called and asked to see the window.
Kol Ami Executive Director Danny Burman led the tour, with a cameo appearance by Rabbi Samuel Spector. The kind gentlemen also gave me a brief lesson I like to call “Mikvehs 101.”
A mikveh is a basin of water used for the Jewish ritual of immersion, cleansing, and purification. Jews often use the Mikveh during times of change or transition.
Kol Ami wanted a beautiful work of art to accentuate the Mikveh ritual and experience. They asked local artists—the Holdmans—to design a window.
When the initial design was done, the artists presented it to Rabbi Spector for his approval. He liked it but asked the artists to include one additional image.
During his rabbinical studies in Israel, the rabbi also spent some time studying in Egypt. He had to take a long bus ride to get there, a daunting task even in the best of times.
Once day while the rabbi was in Egypt, the Egyptian revolution erupted. The rabbi had to leave and that day the bus ride back to Israel—in the middle of the turmoil—was even more difficult.
Near the end of that journey, as the bus reached the Red Sea, the sun was rising. It was a hopeful and encouraging image, and the rabbi took a photo of it.
During the planning for the Kol Ami Mikveh window, the rabbi showed that photo to the Holdman studio artists. They liked it too and incorporated the beautiful image into the next and final version of the glass artwork.
Today, when Utah’s Jews confront their own small or large transitions and moments of change during a ritual bath at Kol Ami, they too get to see a Red Sea sunrise. That works both artistically and theologically, because living water and new beginnings are at the very heart of the Mikveh experience.
