Among the 34 luminous photographs, many of women, displayed in Hannah Altman’s exhibition at Brandeis University’s Kniznick Gallery in Waltham, Mass., is an image of an older woman with her face raised toward the light. Underneath her chin is a Torah pointer that is positioned in a way that suggests it is holding up her head. Titled Yad—the Hebrew term for the Torah pointer, which helps readers keep their place as they chant from the scroll—the photograph is meant to symbolize engagement with Jewish text.

Altman’s exhibition, “As It Were, Suspended in Midair,” which runs through June, takes its name from a line in an essay by poet Hayim Nahman Bialik, exploring how interacting with Jewish text informs Jewish practice. (Images from the exhibition are also available on the artist’s website.)

The award-winning Boston-based photographer called her body of work “inspired by the throughlines in various Jewish stories. Many stories include uncertainty about the future, tales of tension and moments punctuated by a Jewish object or ritual.”

Take My Weight in Salt, a stark photograph of a pile of salt illuminated in sunlight against a blue-black wall. “Sunlight,” she said, “feels very mystical to me.” The photograph calls to mind the biblical story of Lot’s wife, who was transformed into a pillar of salt when she looked back at her home city of Sodom, despite an angel’s warning. But in the spirit of Jewish learning associated with the holiday of Shavuot, which begins this year on June 1, Altman said, there is no definitive interpretation of the work.

The images in her new photography book also embody recognizable Jewish motifs that invite commentary. Indeed, the book’s title, We Will Return to You (Saint Lucy Books), is a translation of the Hadran prayer traditionally said after completing the study of a Talmudic tractate.

As Altman said, “It’s a promise that the text is evolving, and one can constantly take from it and continue interpreting it.”

Judy Bolton-Fasman