A group of men and women from all walks of life and faith have literally stitched together the fabric of human history.

The Torah Stitch-By-Stitch project began six years ago, a brainchild of its founder, Temma Gentles.

Gentles, an award-winning Judaic textile artist, was in Jerusalem when she was excluded from a show due to her status as a liberal Jew. 

That exclusion made the artist wonder what could be done to empower women in particular who are both religious and liberal to engage with the text of the Torah in a creative way - and Torah Stitch-By-Stitch was born.

"It was inspired lunacy, to tell you the truth, but sometimes it just seemed like lunacy," chuckled Lili Shain, President and Chair of the non-profit organization.

Shain will tell you that amazingly, the project began to take off with 1,500 stitchers taking part from 28 countries across the world.

"It had to get this big in order to get done,"

Each person involved stitched approximately four verses to make up one panel of the Torah, Shain explained.

Shain herself stitched a total of seven panels for the project. That number includes two panels of Torah verses and three illuminations, panels which featured only images, and two pieces of the New Testament that serve as a tribute or an acknowledgment of the connections between the three Abrahamic faiths.

"It takes at least 50 to 100 hours to do one panel with four verses," Shain said, evidencing the work that was required to see a project such as Torah Stitch-By-Stitch through to completion.

"If you think about all the embellishment and all the beautiful images that were stitched... there will be by the end of this project at least 200,000 hours that will have been expended."

200,000 hours is the equivalent of one person working full-time for 100 years, making six years so far a pretty impressive feat for the project.

Before the project, Shain says she knew how to cross-stitch, which was part of the reason why she responded to the request at her synagogue to participate. She had never, however, done counted cross-stitch, a harder variation of the craft involving the exact counting of the number of squares for each letter to be stitched.

"A lot of people who did it, they would cross-stitch the first line and then they would cross-stitch the second line and then they would realize that they'd made a mistake because they didn't line up," said Shain. "Just like a real Torah, the text has to be justified both on the right side and on the left side which means you have to count exactly right."

It's a more-than-impressive display, especially when you consider the sheer volume of work required, not only to create the panels but also in assembling them. Men and women between the ages of 15 and 94 have participated in preparing the vast sacred recreation.

The first half of the project can currently be viewed at the Textile Museum in Toronto, Ontario. When it's complete, the project will span about 300 feet, the size of a football field.

Thankfully, the cross stitch medium is conducive to being folded according to its environment, providing room for the massive Torah to be displayed. The craft's form of creation, however, had another reason behind its selection, says Shain: its accessibility to all.

"Cross-stitch also was chosen because it is a stitch that is done in all cultures. It's a stitch that was done by young children, young girls especially when they learned to read and write."

To date, most of the panels have been stitched, with a completion date for assembly of the entire Torah estimated in 2021. There's no rush, however, to seeing the project finished.

After all, as the non-profit says, the Torah wasn't stitched in a day.