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“Incident at San Miguel” – new novel set in the Cuban Revolution in 1958 provides rich insight into Jewish life in Cuba
By BERNIE BELLAN The history of Cuba’s Jewish community is quite an interesting one. According to Wikipedia, “more than 24,000 Jews lived in Cuba in 1924, and still more immigrated to the country in the 1930s. Following the 1959 communist revolution, 94% of the country’s Jews emigrated, most of them to the United States. In 2007 an estimated 1,500 known Jewish Cubans remained in the country, overwhelmingly located in Havana.”
I’ll get into my review of a book set in Cuban in the 1950s later, but first I wanted to provide some background about the very important role that Canada has played in helping the Cuban Jewish community, especially since 1973.
Following are some excerpts from past issues of The Jewish Post that will provide the reader with a basic understanding of how helpful Canada has been to Cuba’s Jewish community:
From the Nov. 24, 1983 issue: “Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) will send $30,000 worth of religious articles and supplies to the Jewish community of Cuba, the World Jewish Congress has announced here. Ever since the U.S. severed relations with Cuba in 1960, the CJC has looked after the needs of Cuban Jews” (emphasis mine).
From the November 17, 1999 issue, headlined: “Canada played key role, helping Cuban Jews emigrate to Israel”:
I, myself, wrote the following: “On October 11, the Globe & Mail broke a story in this country headlined ‘Canada aids Cuban exodus – Secret transit of Jews has gone on 25 years.’ “
That story went on to detail how Canada had facilitated the emigration of some 400 Cuban Jews to Israel, beginning in 1973. (Cuba broke off diplomatic relations with Israel at the time of the Yom Kippur War.)
Subsequent to that story I was able to interview Lloyd Axworthy, who was Canada’s Foreign Minister at that time. I asked Axworthy about Canada’s role in helping Cuban Jews emigrate to Israel. He explained that, “beginning in the early 70s, we undertook to set up what we call the Israeli interests unit in our embassy (in Havana), staffed by a locally-engaged person, not only to represent Israeli interests, but also to expedite the emigration from Cuba of members of the Jewish community.
“Since it’s been in operation, there have been about 400 visas that have been obtained. What we do is simply work it from Havana to the Israeli embassy in Ottawa.”
That interview went on to explore how Canada had kept its role relatively quiet, although apparently it was very well known within the Jewish community in Cuba that if you wanted to emigrate you should approach the Canadian embassy.
As Axworthy noted during that interview, “We’ve been quite careful to keep it low key. There was no point in broadcasting it, because there are sensitivities in Cuba to such things.”
I came across another interesting aspect to the role Canada has played in helping Cuba’s Jewish community in 2013 when I learned that Canada’s then-ambassador to Cuba was someone by the name of Matthew Levin, who was an old childhood friend. I emailed Matthew in January 2013, asking him whether he would consent to an interview and he responded warmly.
He also happened to mention something else that I found quite interesting. In response to my telling him about my interview with Lloyd Axworthy many years prior, Matthew wrote in an email to me that “the connection with Lloyd Axworthy and Cuban Jews is of great interest. Coincidentally my wife is now coordinating the Aliyah program in Cuba from the Embassy.”
Alas, much as Matthew was willing to be interviewed, an apparatchik from what was then called the Department of International Affairs and Foreign Trade stepped into the mix and informed me that I couldn’t actually speak to Matthew; instead, I was told, I could email whatever questions I wanted to ask in advance.
I explained to the apparatchik that I wanted to do a folksy interview with someone who was an old friend and that emailing questions would deprive what I was wanting to do of any spontaneity. You can guess how far that went.
In any event, all this serves as a prelude to a review of a book that I actually finished reading a couple of months ago – and had wanted to review at that time. The book is called “Incident at San Miguel,” by A. J. Sidransky. Mr. Sidransky (and I did ascertain that he was a man, although it’s always difficult when you only know an author’s initials) had sent me a review copy of the book back in November, but I didn’t get around to beginning reading it until February.
After I did finish the book and emailed Mr. Sidransky to tell him how good I thought the book was – and that I was now ready to publish a review, I was somewhat surprised when he asked me to hold off publishing the review, writing “Could you hold the review for May? The book release is May 19. Right now we only have preorders for kindle to be delivered May 19.”
However, I just took a look and saw that “Incident at San Miguel” is available for pre-ordering, either in paperback on Amazon or in Kobo format.
Review of “Incident at San Miguel”
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the book itself. The foreword to the book is written by someone by the name of Miriam Bradman Abrahams, who explains that she is the Cuban-born daughter of Cuban Jewish refugees. Her family had been separated from the family that remained in Cuba for over 40 years, although some of her Cuban family had been able to visit Ms. Abrahams’ family in New York in 2001. Ms. Abrahams had long wanted to visit Cuba, she explains, but wasn’t able to do so until 2008.
She told the story of her family to A. J. Sidransky, who is a Spanish-speaking writer of fiction. Mr. Sidransky took elements of Ms. Abrahams’ story and mixed in some fictitious parts to produce “Incident at San Miguel.”
Here is a synopsis of the book: “Havana, Cuba. December 1958. Two brothers find themselves on opposite sides of Castro’s revolution. One dark night, after rescuing a leader of the revolt under house arrest, one brother finds himself hunted. The other, an influential attorney, must make a choice. Help his brother, placing the whole family at risk, or let Batista’s forces capture him. His decision will haunt them both for the rest of their lives. How far will we go to protect those we love? Based on a true story, Incident at San Miguel takes us there.”
Although I was somewhat familiar with the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro’s ascent to power, I was fascinated to learn that it was quite some time after Castro and his followers had taken over Cuba before he began to introduce communism to that island.
“Incident at San Miguel” begins in 1958, which was shortly before the then-dictator of Cuba, Filgenico Batista, was overthrown by Castro.
Two brothers, Aaron and Moises Cohan, find themselves on opposite sides of what is transpiring at that moment in Cuba, although, as the novel opens, we see that the brothers do get along quite nicely. Aaron is a lawyer, working in the Batista administration, while Moses is an economist who is aligned with the revolutionaries seeking to overthrow the government.
As the story develops we learn quite a bit about the Jewish community in Cuba at that time. Although most Jews would have been considered middle class, a number of them had become very wealthy businesspeople. The majority of Cubans, however, were quite poor.
In his own introduction, Mr. Sidransky provides an analysis why Jews were continually subjected to persecution by totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, writing that “As in all totalitarian regimes, there is always a boogeyman. In the case of the Nazis and the Hungarian Fascists in the 1930s and 40s that boogeyman was the Jews. In the case of communist systems, including Hungary under Soviet communism, and Castro’s Cuba, the boogeyman is the entrepreneurial or capitalist class. In the absence of a religious, ethnic, or racial minority to blame for the nations’ problems, Communism points its finger at an economic class to which it ascribes the suffering of its people and the nation.”
And, as successful members of that economic class – at least to some extent, it was hardly a surprise that Jews suffered under the Castro regime once communism became solidly entrenched as the economic model for Cuba.
But, as “Incident at San Miguel” relates, it was not at all clear what was in store for Cuba in the late 1950s. Batista’s secret police were everywhere, revolutionaries who were found out were either imprisoned or worse, executed, and despite the continued inroads that Castro’s and other revolutionaries seemed to be making, life in Havana, at least, continued in what seemed to be a normal fashion.
Moises Cohan, though, finds himself caught up in a daring plot to free a former professor of his, who is a hero to revolutionaries, and who has been held under house arrest by the Batista regime. Hence the name “Incident at San Miguel” because the particular incident in question, in which an attempt to free the professor, leads to a whole mess of intrigue as a result.
Moises finds himself on the run and seeks Aaron’s help in being able to escape. Aaron is torn between two worlds. He has been promoted to a senior position within the regime and, helping his brother would not only be a betrayal of that regime, it would be exceedingly dangerous.
Time moves on and on New Year’s Eve, January 1, 1959, the Batista regime folds and Castro’s revolutionaries march into Havana.
Mixed in with the political intrigue are the relationships the two brothers have developed with two vastly different women. Aaron’s fiancée, Beatriz, herself comes from a prosperous Jewish family, and she is perfectly at home with Aaron’s parents, Esther and Rafael.
Moises’ lover, Ana Teresa, in contrast, is a dedicated revolutionary whose first order of business is not romance, but fighting. Moises keeps his relationship with Ana Teresa a secret from his parents, knowing that they would be devastated to learn that he has taken up with a non-Jewish woman.
In time, both Moises and Ana Teresa rise to senior levels within the new Castro regime, yet their romance begins to flounder. Moises is an idealist who believes strongly in the ostensible goal of the revolution to bring about greater equality among the classes. Ana Teresa, it turns out, is a ruthless – and cynical, revolutionary, who is quite prepared to compromise her ideals if it means entrenching the new regime. When it becomes clearer, however, that the new regime wants to bring about equality by leveling the upper and middle classes, Moises begins to become increasingly disillusioned with what is happening – and with his lover.
A fascinating subplot develops when Moises happens to stumble upon a scheme whereby someone in the regime is reaping huge financial rewards through extorting Cuban businessmen, many of whom happen to be Jewish. Reading how Moises undertakes to get at the heart of this corruption introduces an exciting element of suspense into the novel.
We also learn how difficult it quickly became once the new regime was in place for Cubans to obtain exit visas. By this time Aaron and Beatriz have a young baby. The horrible dilemma with which Aaron has to deal is that bureaucrats are willing to let Aaron and Beatriz leave, but their child is denied permission.
That sets in motion a whole new set of challenges for Aaron – who would also love to be able to get both his and Beatriz’s parents out of the country. The parents, however, have a strong attachment to Cuba and are not interested in leaving the country.
I was somewhat surprised to learn that 94% of Cuba’s Jewish population did leave Cuba following the revolution – given how difficult obtaining exit visas was, but when I tried to deduce just how many individuals that figure of 94% represented, I wasn’t able to figure that out. If Cuba’s Jewish population was 24,000 in 1924, as Wikipedia says, and there was an influx of Jews from Europe in the 1930s, then the number of Jews who left Cuba following the revolution had to have been well over 23,000. How did they all get out, I wonder – especially after reading this book and learning how difficult it was for anyone to leave the country after a certain point? I’d certainly like to learn more about when and how so many Jewish Cubans were able to leave following the revolution.
Yet, in reading about the wonderful texture of life in Cuba prior to 1959 – at least for those who were able to enjoy a reasonably prosperous standard of living, such as the Cohan family did, life certainly seemed idyllic in many respects. The descriptions of the kinds of foods that are native to Cuba that the Cohan family was able to incorporate into their daily fare are quite tantalizing, as are the descriptions of the wonderful climate and the beautiful countryside.
“Incident at San Miguel” also provides many insights into the dynamics that underlay the Cuban revolution, including how much democratic ideals inspired so many of the young revolutionaries. While Fidel Castro himself only makes a cameo appearance in the book, Che Guevara plays a prominent – and altogether despicable role. While the book is a work of fiction, with many elements based on the true story of Miriam Bradham Abrahams’ family, the author has certainly done extensive research into life in Cuba in the 1950s. There are some vivid descriptions of how business was conducted – and how much corruption played a part in both the old and new regimes.
A political thriller with many romantic aspects and a vivid portrayal of a country that had so much promise had it not been exploited by one dictatorial regime after another, “Incident at San Miguel” is a riveting read.
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Building Credit in College for Future Real Estate Deals
Most college students aren’t thinking about mortgages. But the students who buy their first investment property at 25 or 27 started building credit at 19 or 20. The two are directly connected.
Real estate is a game of capital access. Lenders don’t care how motivated you are – they care what your FICO score says. A 760+ score gets you prime mortgage rates. A 620 gets you higher interest and fewer options. The difference in monthly payments over a 30-year mortgage can be tens of thousands of dollars.
The window you have in college to build credit without major financial pressure is one of the most underused advantages Jewish students have.
Credit Foundations: Where To Start
Your credit score is built from five factors. Payment history makes up 35% – the largest single component. Credit utilization (how much of your available credit you’re using) accounts for 30%. Length of credit history, credit mix, and new inquiries cover the rest.
For most students, the first practical step is a secured credit card or a student credit card. Secured cards require a deposit that becomes your credit limit – typically $200-$500. They report to all three major bureaus and build history the same way unsecured cards do.
The rules are simple but require consistency. Pay the full balance every month. Keep utilization below 30% of your limit. Don’t apply for multiple cards in a short period. These habits compound over years – a student who starts at 18 has 7 years of credit history by the time they’re ready for a first mortgage.
One underused option: ask a parent or family member to add you as an authorized user on an older card with a clean payment history. You don’t need to use the card. The account’s age and payment history get added to your credit file immediately.
Researching Investment Options During Studies
Business, economics, and finance students regularly analyze real estate markets as part of their dissertation. That work isn’t just academic – it’s actual market research that doubles as preparation for real investing decisions.
However, balancing dataheavy analysis, market research, and exams often leads to extreme burnout. To survive the final semester, many students look for external support. Some of them use EduBirdie – best dissertation writing services for timely delivery and consistent quality on deliverables when the research load is heavy. Outsourcing the formatting and drafting frees up time to dig deeper into the actual market data that matters for real investment decisions. The analysis you build during college becomes your knowledge base before you ever make an offer.
Smart students treat every finance and real estate assignment as a portfolio of personal research. That perspective shifts the work from obligation to investment preparation.
How Student Loans Affect Your Future Mortgage
This is where many graduates get surprised. Student loan debt directly affects your debt-to-income ratio (DTI) – a key metric lenders use in mortgage approval. Most conventional lenders want your total monthly debt payments to stay below 43% of gross monthly income.
If you graduate with $40,000 in student loans at a standard repayment, your monthly payment is roughly $400. That $400 counts against your DTI before you add a car payment or rent. Managing your loan balance and making consistent payments not only builds credit – it keeps your DTI workable when you’re ready to buy.
Income-driven repayment plans can lower monthly payments but extend the loan period. For mortgage purposes, lenders typically use the actual monthly payment shown on your credit report when calculating DTI.
Practical Steps For Building Credit In College
Keep Utilization Low
Staying under 30% of your credit limit matters more than most students realize. If your card limit is $500, that means keeping your balance below $150 before the billing date. Paying in full each month handles this automatically.
Monitor Your Score Regularly
Free monitoring is available through Credit Karma, Experian, and most major banks. Checking your score doesn’t hurt it. Set up alerts for new inquiries, changes in balance, or any accounts you don’t recognize. Catching errors early prevents damage that takes months to fix.
Build Your Credit Mix Over Time
Lenders like to see that you can handle different types of credit. A student card, a small personal loan, and eventually a car loan create a credit mix in college that strengthens your profile. Don’t open accounts you don’t need, but don’t avoid credit out of fear either.
Here’s a practical credit-building checklist for college students:
- Open one student or secured credit card and use it monthly
- Pay the full balance before the due date every month
- Keep utilization below 30% at all times
- Become an authorized user on a parent’s old card if possible
- Check your credit report annually at AnnualCreditReport.com
- Make all student loan payments on time once they enter repayment
- Don’t close old accounts – account age matters
Understand What Mortgage Pre-Approval Requires
When you eventually apply for a mortgage, lenders will look at your FICO score, DTI, employment history, down payment, and reserves. The credit score threshold for a conventional loan is 620, but most competitive rates start at 740 and above. FHA loans allow scores down to 580 with a 3.5% down payment.
Starting to build credit at 18 or 19 means arriving at your first mortgage application with 6-8 years of credit history. That length alone adds 15% of your score. Combined with responsible utilization and clean payment history, you can realistically hit 740+ before you graduate.
The Long Game
Real estate investing after college isn’t a fantasy – it’s a planning problem. The students who pulled it off didn’t get lucky. They started building credit years before they needed it, kept their DTI manageable, and used their time in school to understand the markets they wanted to invest in.
The credit habits you build now are the credentials lenders will evaluate later. Start with one card, pay it in full, and let the history accumulate. Five years from now, that consistency becomes a mortgage approval and the keys to your first property.
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How Pioneer Families Kept Hebrew Alive on the Early Canadian Prairies
Canadian Prairies of the West and Jewish Pioneer Families
Early Western Canada boasted prairies and Jewish immigrant families’ settlements. Here is how they kept the Hebrew language alive and built makeshift schools.
Western Canada in the late 1800s was nothing more than plains. Wild grass and strong prairie winds covered the terrain. But that open land and freedom became a lifeline for thousands of Jewish immigrants. They were running from dangerous attacks in Europe to the safety of farm life in Canada. These families settled where there was nothing and the closest towns were miles away. They lived without electricity or running water. But even though every day was a survival for them, they managed to preserve their heritage and language.
Their effort to do so was enormous, but the information about it is mostly available in deep historical archives. If you need to write a detailed history paper on Canadian homesteaders, you’d probably be better off using the WritePaper academic help platform. Their experts have access to extensive knowledge bases, including numerous archives. If you just want to get a glimpse of how these families did it, here are some interesting facts.
Let’s start with the early farming towns these families built from scratch.
Early Farming Towns
Between 1880 and 1910, several Jewish farming towns started on the Canadian plains. These families left dangerous conditions in European countries like Russia, Lithuania, and Romania. They wanted a safe, fresh start on the land. They built farming communities with unique names like Hirsch, Wapella, Lipton, and Edenbridge in Saskatchewan. Other families started settlements like Bender Hamlet in Manitoba. When they first arrived, the land was completely wild and flat.
The weather was incredibly tough for the new farmers. The first winters were so cold that many families lived in sod dugouts. These were temporary homes dug right into the ground with roofs made of thick dirt and grass. Luckily, local Indigenous and Métis neighbors stepped in to help. They taught the newcomers how to build warm log cabins out of wood and clay. They also showed them how to survive freezing winter blizzards. Once the families had food and shelter, they focused on education. They knew that even though Yiddish was their everyday language, their kids still needed to learn Hebrew. Without Hebrew, their religious identity would fade away in the wilderness.
Classrooms out of Logs and Mud
How do you run a school when your neighbors live miles away? Several academic papers on this era show that starting a school required hard work and teamwork. One of the articles by Eric Stelee, who also writes for the best paper writing service WritePaper, points out that studying these early schools requires looking at deep community sacrifices. Farming families had to build everything with their own two hands. They set up Talmud Torahs. These were traditional afternoon Hebrew schools. Kids there were taught religious reading, writing, and daily prayers.
Building these schools, however, wasn’t the only problem pioneers came face to face with:
- Since trained teachers wouldn’t move to remote frontier farms, communities had to find and hire traveling tutors.
- Kids often had to walk or ride horses for many miles through deep snow just to get to a single lesson.
- Before permanent schoolhouses were finished, simple log cabins and small community halls had to double as schoolrooms during the week.
- Spring planting and fall harvest affected attendance significantly. Parents often needed their kids to help them in the fields.
Real Numbers of the Prairie Frontier
Old records show exactly how fast these prairie communities grew out of the wilderness. Between 1884 and 1912, Jewish families started 31 different farming communities across the Canadian prairies. The Canadian government offered 160 acres of wild land to any settler for a fee of just ten dollars. The only catch was that families had to clear the land and farm it successfully.
In 1892, a group of 47 families started the Hirsch community in Saskatchewan. Later, in 1906, another group of 56 pioneers started the Edenbridge community further north. By the year 1911, the official census counted exactly 2,066 Jewish people living in the province of Saskatchewan alone. These families proved that hard work could protect their language and history in a brand-new country.
The Tools of Prairie Learning
Books were very rare and expensive on the early Canadian frontier. Most families could only bring a few holy books packed tightly into their wooden trunks when they left Europe. These family treasures became the main textbooks for pioneer kids.
To keep their traditions alive without modern school supplies, families had to be creative:
- Parents spoke Yiddish at home, but they also repeated Hebrew prayers and holy songs aloud while cooking or feeding farm animals.
- They would gather kids around a single, worn-out family Bible to read the Hebrew letters together by the light of a lamp.
- Small towns shared their money to hire one person who worked as both the community butcher and the school teacher.
- Permanent wood synagogues, like the Beth Israel Synagogue built in 1908, became the centers for kids’ religious education.
Hebrew stayed alive as a sacred language on the flat plains because of these efforts. Kids learned the ancient alphabet and historic prayers while living thousands of miles away from big cultural cities.
Conclusion
Canadian prairie communities proved to the world that language and heritage can be preserved if you put your heart into it. Unfortunately, most of these farms disappeared during the Great Depression and the draw of big cities. But places like Edenbridge still exist today and have become important historic sites. These places keep memories of those mud and log schoolhouses alive.
Pioneer Jewish families that came to Canada in the 1800s had nothing, yet they still managed to pass knowledge down to their children. One candlelit lesson at a time.
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Why Modern Torah Scribes Still Mix Ink by Hand
It’s 2026 and Torah Scribes Still Mix Ink by Hand
Did you know that Jewish ritual scribes don’t actually use any of the modern printing tools? They still mix a 2,000-year-old ink recipe by hand and here is how.
Our lives are run by smartphones and computers. Everything can be typed or copied in a matter of minutes or even seconds. Yet, there is still a certain profession that rejects all these modern conveniences. They also reject the obsession with speed we have, exactly because of all these tools. These professionals are Sofrim. They are ritual scribes in Jewish communities. They are responsible for hand-writing Torah scrolls, holy books, and small mezuzah scrolls for doorways.
The contrast between their craft and the constant typing we are used to is striking. Just think of it. If a student or even a professional is pressed for time, they just go online and look for a writing service to help them out. A digital platform like PaperWriter can write and format an entire paper in just a few hours. But this same speed is the enemy of a holy Torah scribe. To write a sacred scroll, they must be deeply concentrated and slow about their process. Rush can’t be part of it. In fact, this special care begins before the pen touches the page. First, they gather the ingredients and mix the writing ink.
The Strict Rules of Sacred Ink
Why can’t a scribe just buy a bottle of high-quality black ink at a local art supply store? It all comes down to traditional Jewish law, which is called Halakha. A Torah scroll is a highly holy object with very strict manufacturing standards. A single scroll contains exactly 304,805 letters and takes a full year of daily manual labor to finish. If even a single letter fades, cracks, or peels off the page over time, the entire scroll becomes invalid. It cannot be used in a synagogue service until it is carefully repaired.
There is also a common myth that the ink itself must be “kosher.” But Jewish law actually focuses on durability and natural purity. While the parchment page absolutely must come from a kosher animal species, the ink simply needs to be permanent, deeply black, and made from scratch.
To make sure the holy words last for hundreds of years, the ink must follow these specific standards:
- Color. It must be a deep, solid jet-black color that is easy to read.
- Durability. The ink must bond with the skin page so it never flakes off.
- Texture. It must remain smooth enough to avoid cracking over the centuries.
Modern writers often focus on how much digital tools have changed our daily habits. As a blog writer for the paper writing service PaperWriter, Jacky M. points out, “modern text has become instant, temporary, and easily erasable.” Ritual scribes, however, take the opposite path. They preserve a slow, physical process that has remained unchanged for thousands of years. They make sure ancient texts endure for future generations.
The 2,000-Year-Old Ink Recipe
To get the perfect black color and long-lasting quality, scribes use a formula that dates back to ancient times. This traditional mixture is a special kind of iron gall ink. It creates a permanent chemical bond directly on the page.
The Raw Ingredients
Before beginning the brewing process, a scribe must gather a small collection of organic materials:
- Oak Galls. Round, woody bumps from oak trees that contain a natural acid.
- Iron Sulfate. A natural mineral salt that turns the liquid dark black.
- Gum Arabic. A sticky tree sap that acts as a natural glue.
- Pure Water. The liquid base for boiling the ingredients together.
The Preparation Steps
The process of turning these raw elements into smooth writing fluid requires a lot of patience and precision:
- The hard oak galls are crushed into a fine powder.
- The powder is boiled in water for several hours until it creates a dark, strong tea.
- Tea is strained to remove solid pieces of wood.
- The iron sulfate is then added to the warm liquid.
- The gum arabic is added last to give the liquid a thick, glossy texture.
The moment the iron touches the oak gall tea, a chemical reaction happens. The pale brown liquid instantly turns into a deep, pitch-black ink. The added gum arabic keeps the ink from dripping too fast off the tip of the scribe’s traditional quill or reed pen.
Why This Ancient Ink Lasts Longer
This handmade chemical compound is perfectly suited for parchment, which is made from processed animal skins. Modern factory inks are full of harsh chemicals and alcohols designed to dry instantly on wood-based paper. If you use factory ink on animal parchment, it will eventually ruin the surface. The letters will turn brittle, dry out, and fall off the page like old house paint.
Handmade iron gall ink works completely differently. It actually bites into the organic fibers of the animal skin. As the years go by, the iron in the ink reacts with the oxygen in the air. This chemical reaction causes the ink to get darker over time instead of fading away.
Conclusion
Some traditions are just too important to be simply replaced by automation. Yes, mixing the ink and writing a sacred text by hand takes time and focus. But the result is outstanding. The tradition is preserved, and these holy texts look and feel the same as they did a thousand years ago. It’s a way for people to touch and be closer to history, so to speak.