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Terminology, Design, and Iconography
It used to be the custom to donate a mantle (me’il) to the synagogue, either along with a new Torah scroll or on its own. When a mantle is donated with a scroll, they are kept together and the mantle acts as the scroll's permanent covering, making it easier to identify a specific scroll. In congregations with many Torah scrolls, the dedicatory inscription on the mantle is of great importance since it helps to pick out the scroll that is to be read. There are also mantles with no connection to a specific scroll, the intention behind the donation often being that they should be used on particular sabbaths or to commemorate special occasions.
The mantle was the last of the ceremonial objects to evolve for the wrapping of the Torah scroll, and the only one to have a name of its own, other than the mapah, whose name is still used in a few communities today. The Hebrew name me’il and its parallels in other languages spoken by Jews (mantello in Italian, mantl or manteli in Yiddish, vestido in Spanish), as well as terms borrowed from the vocabulary of dress, such as malbush (‘vestment’), bigdei ha’aron lekodsho (‘vestments of the ark to consecrate it’), and kutonet (‘shirt’, ‘tunic’), all point to the close connection between the mantle and fashions in dress, as does the Spanish expression capyllo de Tora (‘coat of a Torah scroll’), the phrase used to refer to a mantle in documents from the time of the expulsion from Spain in 1492.
Just as garments reflect the status of their wearers in all cultures, so the mantle plays a similar role. When the doors of the ark are opened, the scrolls are seen in all their splendour. The carrying of the scroll to and from the reading desk, removing its vestments, and replacing them before and after the reading, all lend an aura of importance to the mantle. Thus, a mantle is donated not only in order to protect the scroll, to give thanks to God, or to commemorate someone who has passed away; it is also a means of acquiring social status in the congregation and demonstrating one's wealth.
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