"Dialogue 17"

Dov Lederberg

There is a saying: “You are what you eat”. But perhaps it should be: “You are what you hang up on your walls.”

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Certainly, the quality and direction of a person’s daily visual stimuli must have an influence on his/her mood and can be a springboard to profound spiritual meditation. Although the Judaic tradition is usually thought of as essentially iconoclastic according to a misinterpretation of the precept not to make a “graven image,” there are many areas that are especially appropriate and a source of inspiration for the artist.

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1. The Sacred Letters or the Hebrew letters according to the scribal style that appears

in the Torah scroll.

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2. Meditations and Imaginings on the Jewish Star, the Tree of Life diagram of the sephirot and visions of the Third Temple and Future Jerusalem. (These examples from the work of Yael Avi-Yonah)

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3. Images of the Dialogue-Antilogue series, suggesting through abstract forms and archetypes the intimate relationship between a man and his wife, the most potent kabbalistic metaphor for spiritual connection.

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4. In general, abstract art, or more precisely illusionist or gestalt art, can be become a strong stimulant to meditation, since it invites the active participation of the viewer with the endless possibility of seeing “new things”, thus eliciting multi-layered expansive consciousness.

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5. The use of the Golden Section (Fibonacci series), Cubes and Supercubes, Spiral Helixes and Fractals, all of which are hinted at in Jewish philosophy and in particular

the Kabbalah.

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In the dialogue relating to healing, art and Judaism, there is one perspective that considers illness, particularly the whole range of mental disorders, even normal tension, the result of a constricted consciousness. In the Kabbalah this is called Mitzrayim, the Hebrew name for Egypt, connected to the Hebrew root M-TZ-R, meaning straits and constriction. Mitzrayim implies a “doubled” constriction, that is to say a person who is - perhaps happily - completely unaware of his constricted view of life. The responsibility of the healer is to help deliver his patient from his mental "Egypt" to achieve a new and expansive vision of his life and mission.

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The constricted mundane consciousness is often described in the Kabbalah as the Elo-kim mode, a world ruled only by natural & rational laws. Expansive consciousness is the Yod-Kay-Vav-Kay mode, which implies the Past, the Present and the Future, together and simultaneously, and is the essence of the Jewish religious faith. This mode name is so holy that we substitute in a secular context just the word: HaShem: The Name.

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Art can help in this healing; bring you along from a state of Elo-kim to being closer to The Name. After all, you are what you hang up on your walls.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Dov Lederberg, Guest Blogger

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Dov Lederberg grew up in Philadelphia, and educated at Haverford College, Columbia University (Fine Arts), and baal tsuva yeshivot in Brooklyn & Israel. He was an “underground” filmmaker in the Sixties and, since his aliya to Israel in 1967, a film director for Israel TV and independent. Since 1983, involved with new art mediums (painting and videoart) to visually express Jewish mysticism. His work is exhibited in museums and galleries in Israel and abroad. He and his artist wife, Yael Avi-Yonah, will be in the US between March 8th to April 6th in the greater NYC area, including a solo exhibit at the Great Neck Arts Center (Long Island), opening March 24th and are available for additional lectures and exhibitions. They welcome visits to their Jerusalem studio. View more of the artist's work at his website http://www.art.net/TheGallery/Vision and reach him by email at vision@art.net and phone Tel/fax: 972-2-5611411 - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor