Rabbi Rami Shapiro first got us thinking about doing a jigsaw puzzle as a spiritual meditation. He observed, "Each piece has its place and no other piece can fit that place. Yet no one piece makes sense on its own. . . . Once a piece is in its proper place, its separateness is surrendered. We know a piece is in its place when it blends with the whole and disappears." Just imagine our delight when we received three 1,000-piece puzzles in Pomegranate's Artpiece series that each has a spiritual theme.
Lindisfarne reproduces a carpet page, which has no text, from the intricately ornamented eighth-century manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels, from northeastern England.
Mizrah is a reproduction from nineteenth-century Ukraine, now in the Jewish Museum. It depicts the decoration for the eastern wall of homes or synagogues located west of Jerusalem, indicating the direction of prayer.
Tibetan Buddhist Mandala is a reproduction of a mandala of the Buddhist goddess Sitatapatra Aparajita from Tibet (1700-1800). The mandala is a diagram representing the architectural and cosmological environments of deities from a bird's-eye perspective. Buddhists believe that contemplating a mandala nourishes the seed of enlightenment in each person. So you can just imagine what putting together a 26" x 20" 1,000-piece puzzle would do!
