At age 63, Dekel’s father actualizes his dream of celebrating a Bar Mitzvah. This dream was realized for him by his son, in a reversal of roles transmitted through the camera.

The focus of the film is Abraham, the artist’s father, a man with disabilities who has always lived on the margins and never had the opportunity to make a traditional aliyah to the Torah, due to his limited reading and writing abilities. His son decided to arrange an unorthodox ceremony for him at the local synagogue, combining the tradition of the ‘zappa’ — a festive procession of family members and friends dressed in traditional Yemenite clothing, accompanying the Bar Mitzvah with songs and prayers.

As a Bar Mitzvah gift, Dekel presented his father with a blank Torah book devoid of biblical text. On its cover, the only word that he’s able to read and write appears in gold letters: ‘Abharam’, a jumbled spelling of his own name, Abraham. The book is devoid of words but contains an entire life’s journey that touches upon the fragility of the father-son relationship, role reversal, and words that remain unsaid.

The story of Dekel and his father reverberates an ancient and timeless story: that of Abraham and Isaac. The complex father-son relationship stands at the center of that story, unresolved, and the emotional dialogue that never took place accompanies them both with a silence that speaks volumes.

Seri’s film is a gesture and response to all that goes unsaid, and a testament to love hidden between the lines, which rises above the limitations of language. A relationship in which the son carries the father, and the father, with his limitations, lays a foundation for his son’s life. Like a woven prayer shawl, the intergenerational relationship exposes a short and delicate creation in which every stitch and fiber reflect connections and breaks, time and meaning.