The Balance of Love
Shana Kelner & Mordechai Ross

Our 3D design shows the issues time with people that isn't balanced creates. Chana has all the time with Elkana, he's perched on the scale which tips it in her direction. With the scale and Elkana on her side, she's filled with pink, which represents a romantic love, but she's still sad because her inside is missing a certain love, the love of a child. Penina has plenty of child love to give, with her 10 sons tipping the other scale towards her. She's filled with yellow love, to represent caring and giving to someone like one gives to a child. She still isn't filled because she's missing the husband's love, the love Elkana only reserves for Chana. The scales are blue to represent the misery of not having the balance of time. But what if they had both? The picture underneath takes both loves, and gives a little to each woman to fill them up with both loves. Around the board are little hourglasses to decorate with the idea of time, and how to be careful with it. Our process of design was challenging, we wanted to represent not feeling fulfilled all the way with only one type of love, but we also wanted to include scales to represent sacred time that they didn't have. We had some printing challenges, so we ultimately had to draw most of our designs but the most important thing to have printed worked. 

To men like Elkana, it sometimes might

be like getting twice the sacred time someone

else would enjoy with their wife, double the

good. But for Chana and Penina, they were

getting half of their sacred time with their

husband, which impacted them negatively.

Penina became jealous of Elkanah's love for

Chana, 'Every time she went up to the House of

the LORD, the other would taunt her, so that

she wept and would not eat.' (Samuel 1:1 7)

This created a negative relationship between

the two wives, with Penina jealous of Chana for

being loved more by Elkana, and Chana having

a hard time seeing all the sons Penna gave

Elkane without Chana having a single one

Chana and Penna struggled to find a sacred

time when they were living together constantly

feeling compared to each other. Elkana says,

"Hannah, why are you crying and why aren't

you eating? Why are you so sad? Am I not

more devoted to you than ten sons?"(Shmuel

1:1 8) It seems Penina was trying so hard to

make Elkana love her more, having ten sons

and all, but surprisingly for her, he still was

more devoted to Chana.