Lev from the Bay Area came to us with a story shaped by migration, love, and endurance.

He told us about his trip to Masada. About a sunrise at the top of the mountain during his Birthright trip, where something shifted. Standing there, overlooking the Dead Sea, he felt, for the first time, a sense of belonging. A realization that he was not just passing through, but connected.

Years later, he returned to that same place with the woman he loves. He took her up the mountain and proposed at that exact spot.

From that moment, they carried a shared understanding. That life moves in waves. And that they would not fall at the same time. If one of them is at the bottom, the other holds steady. And together, they rise again.

That idea became central to the piece.

Lev was drawn to the image of a lion, tied to his name in Russian. He didn’t envision an aggressive or roaring lion. What he described, and what stayed with us, was something more grounded. A presence that holds both strength and restraint.

For the text, we found lines from Leah Goldberg:

והיה מכאובך לי תשורה

בידיים טובות אשאנו

לא אפול

לא אכרע

אל תירא

And your pain will become my gift

Which in good hands I will carry

I will not fall

I will not crouch

Do not fear

Alongside this, he brought in his own language. Words like נחישות, התמדה, שגשוג. Determination, persistence, growth. Qualities shaped over time.

Gabriel approached the piece through that lens. The form of the lion remains calm, balanced, almost at rest. But the texture carries something else. The paper is left uncleaned. Splatter marks, drag lines, traces of the process remain visible.

What emerges is not strength in spite of hardship, but strength formed through it.

For Lev, the piece became a way to hold everything together. The experience of leaving one place and building in another. The vulnerability that comes with it. The love that holds it. And the quiet decision, again and again, to keep moving forward.