Once, a man demanded that Rabbi Hillel teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Rabbi Yael Buechler, a 25-year-old recent graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary, has started a blog that takes that axiom and makes it just a little quirkier: She teaches the Torah by painting it on ten fingernails.
In the past, Buechler has created manicures for Jewish holidays and special occasions. With the launch of her blog, MidrashManicures, it seems she’s going to do a different theme every week, a manicure for each Torah portion.
For instance, the recent Torah portion Masei explains the boundaries of the Land of Israel. On each finger, Buechler depicted an arrow pointing north, south, east, and west. (The fifth finger was a compass rose that pointed in all directions.) And sometimes the connection draws from modern culture–for Shabbat Shirah, the Torah portion that includes the Song of the Sea, Buechler’s nails featured musical notes and scores.
