TorahTweets: A Postdigital Biblical Commentary as a Blogart Narrative

Drawing Spirituality Down from the Clouds

2012-01-25T09:37:00.001+02:00

See Elan Alexenberg's music video drawing together all the 318 images of this Torah Tweets blog: http://vimeo.com/35177613

The Lubavicher Rebbe teaches that we must strive to draw spirituality down into the world and into every part of it - the world of our work and our social life - until not only do they not distract us from our pursuit of G-d, but they become a full part of it.

Our grandson Elan Alexenberg, a professional filmmaker, created a music video as the culmination of this blog. He shows all the still images in this blog dancing together to the rhythm of Jewish music. His visualization of the Rebbe's concept shows images of every aspect of our lives in our 52^nd year together flow down to earth from time-lapse cloud movement. Sitting in our Petah Tikva home working with his editing program on his laptop, he brought spirituality down from the clouds.

Rav Soloveitchik teaches that Judaism "does not aspire to a heavenly transcendence, nor does it seek to soar upon the wings of some abstract, mysterious spirituality. It fixes its gaze upon concrete, empirical reality permeating every nook and cranny of life. The marketplace, the factory, the street, the house, the mall, the banquet hall, all constitute the backdrop of religious life."

Bible Blog Your Life

2011-10-22T20:12:00.012+02:00

An Invitation to Reveal Spirituality in All You Do

We have completed documenting our 52^nd year of marriage by Bible Blogging our life together to reveal spirituality in all we did.

Now, we invite other couples who find the Bible an inspiration to celebrate their relationship by creating their own Bible Blog.

Bible Blogging can also be a meaningful way for individuals and families to reveal spirituality in their lives.

Create your own blog by following the simple directions at http://blogspot.com. Give it a name.

Every week, study a biblical portion and select a passage that speaks to you.

The Torah, the biblical books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), are divided up into weekly portions.

You can see how these five books are divided up in this Torah Tweets blog and at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Torah_portion.

Create a blog posting that includes photographs of your life that week, present or past, which relates to the passage you selected.

Add a text that links your images and the biblical passage to spiritual dimensions of your everyday life.

It can be a creative challenge to write your text as tweets limited to 140 characters. That way, you can post your blog text on Twitter.

Our photographs here zoom in on the images from our first posing on this Torah Tweets blog.

They document our discovery of the creation of the world not more than a few steps from our home.

A cactus on our porch, plants and cat in front of our house, goldfish in the pet shop next door, our dog Snowball, and cloves in a citron.

Although the Torah Tweets year-long blogart project has ended, you can follow creative commentaries on the Torah portion drawn from Mel Alexenberg's book The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press, 2011) at www.future-of-art.com.

Postings for the Genesis portions (Noah, Lekh Lehah, Vayerah), "Tower of Babel: Disastrous Creativity," "Idol Smashing Idols. Art Debunking Art," "Abraham's Choice: Paradise or Barbeque," give a preview of commentaries to come.

Vezot Haberakhah/Bereshit Again (And This is the Blessing/In the Beginning) וזאת הברכה/בראשית

2011-10-10T17:13:00.011+02:00

Blessings Renewed

God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fertile and become many." God said, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a compatible helper for him." (Genesis 1:27-28, 2:18) ויברא אלהים את האדם בצלמו בצלם אלהים ברא אתו זכר ונקבה ברא אתם ויברך אתם אלהים ויאמר להם אלהים פרו ורבו ויאמר יהוה אלהים לא טוב היות האדם לבדו אעשה לו עזר כנגדו

From generation to generation, they will dwell in the Land of Israel where the wilderness will rejoice over them, the desert will be glad and blossom like a lily. Her wilderness will be made like Eden and her desert like a Divine garden. Joy and gladness will be found there, thanksgiving and the sound of music. (Isaiah 35:1, 50:3)

Our Torah Tweets blogart project draws to a close as we celebrate our wedding anniversary and begin our 53^rd year together.

On the Simhat Torah holiday, we rewind the torah scroll reading the end followed by the beginning and dance with the torah singing.

When the holiday ended, dancing and singing continued into the night 52 years ago to celebrate our wedding, prolonging joy and gladness.

As we rewind the torah scroll to begin a new year, we link its last word YisraeL (Israel) to its first word Bereshit (In the beginning).

The last letter Lamed followed by the first letter Bet spells "heart" Lamed Bet. At the heart of the torah, our blessings are renewed.

The last torah portion is Vezot habrakha/And this is the blessing. We are blessed with wonderful children: Iyrit, Ari, Ron, Moshe Yehuda.

Our children are blessed by having found their soul mates: We sit with Iyrit & Ohad Tony, Ari & Julie, Ron & Miri, Moshe Yehuda & Carmit.

Moshe Yehuda & Carmit with their children: Elianne and Avraham.

Ron & Miri with their children: Or, Yahel, Shirel, Maytav, Tagel, Razel.

Ari & Julie with their children: Elan and Talia.

Iyrit & Ohad Tony and their family: Renana, Inbal & her husband Moshe & their son Yehiel Eliad, Oshi, Rachelle, Yishai, Tamir, Aviv, Ron.

Our granddaughter Inbal with Moshe and our great-grandson Yehiel Eliad.

Ha'azinu (Give ear) האזינו

2011-09-25T13:13:00.011+03:00

The Eighth Day

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, O earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop like rain, may my words flow like dew, like downpours upon plant leaves and like raindrops on blades of grass. (Deuteronomy 32:1-2) [In the Land of Israel, the first rain has a name - יורה yoreh. Yesterday, we were blessed by the yoreh as it quenched the earth's thirst after a dry summer.]האזינו השמים ואדברה ותשמע הארץ אמרי פי יערף כמטר לקחי תזל כטל אמרתי כשעירם עלי דשא וכרביבים עלי עשב

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for God has spoken. (Isaiah 1:2) שמעו שמים והאזיני ארץ כי יהוה דבר

The Lubavitcher Rebbe draws on Midrash to teach that Isaiah's words were spoken as a continuation of Moses' oration.

"Give ear" is listening that speaks in a tone of closeness. "Let the earth hear" is hearing that bears the accent of distance.

Moses was closer to heaven, the source of rain, than to earth. Isaiah was closer to earth from which plants grow to sustain all life.

Moses gave us torah, spiritual drops from heaven that create wellsprings that nourish the material blessings of daily life.

Moses could only see the Land of Israel from a distant mountain top. Isaiah lived in the midst of the complexities of life in the Land.

Isaiah's vision of bringing spirituality down into every aspect of everyday life reaches a higher level than Moses' view from above.

Ha'azinu summarizes the torah as the Israelites are about to enter their Land. The images and tweets here summarize life today in our Land.

We repeat one image from each of the 5 books of the torah. Image 6 is Genesis reappearing as we rewind the torah scroll and begin again.

Bereshit (Genesis). The plant leaves in Ha'azinu are leaves of Bereshit. We photographed all Creation within ten steps of our front door.

Shemot (Exodus). Our granddaughter plays at welcoming Shabbat when we tune out, turn off, unplug, resting from our creation to honor God's.

Vayikrah (Leviticus). All torah is in a potato if we reveal it by carving out letters that have no separate existence from the potato itself.

Bamidbar (Numbers). Hamas charter: " Jews hide behind trees that cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him."

Devorim (Deuteronomy). In Hebrew, am segulah, a special people, is related to am segol, a purple people.

The Jewish People is assigned a special role to teach what every artist knows – that purple emerges from mixing blue with red.

Bringing the blue of sky down into the red (adom) of earth (adamah) lowers spirituality into the earth-bound world of physical reality.

Beresit 2 (In the Beginning again). On the eighth day, we become the partners of God in the continuing creation.

Miriam recycled our Sukkot etrog (citron) by pressing cloves into it, creating a refreshing scent at the conclusion of Shabbat every week.

Netzavim/Vayeilekh נצבים וילך (Standing/And Went) Rosh Hashanah (New Year 5772) ראש השנה

2011-09-18T15:57:00.025+03:00

Multiform Unity

You are standing today, all of you, before God your Lord – your leaders, your tribal chiefs, your elders, and your officers, all men of Israel, your children, your women, and your proselyte who is in the midst of your camp, from your wood cutters to your drawers of water. (Deuteronomy 29:9-10) אתם נצבים היום כלכם לפני יהוה אלהיכם ראשיכם שבטיכם זקניכם ושטריכם כל איש ישראל טפכם וגרך אשר בקרב מחניך מחטב עציך עד שאב מימיך

Why does Moses detail different types of Jews when the phrase "all of you" already encompasses them all?

The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that the unity of Israel is created not by every Jew being the same, but by each Jew being himself.

"Israel is one before G-d when, and only when, each Jew fulfills the mission which is his alone."

Days of teshuvah following Rosh Hashanah are days of "return" rather than "repentance." They are a time to return to one's essential self.

The beloved Reb Zusia, an early leader of Hassidism, expressed his fear of appearing before the Almighty at the end of his days.

I am not afraid to be asked: “Reb Zusia, why have you not been like Abraham, the patriarch, or like Moses, our great teacher?”

The question I truly fear is: “Reb Zusia, have you truly been Reb Zusia?"

We watched the President of Israel Shimon Peres standing below an image of Moses woven into Chagall's grand tapestry in the Knesset.

He awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize to the esteemed University of California scientist Professor Harris Lewin.

Looking on are Ruby Rivlin, Speaker of the Knesset, and Dina Berniker, Acting Chairperson of the Council of the Wolf Foundation.

We participate in the Knesset ceremony each year since Mel was appointed a member of the Council by Israel's president.

On Pesach, we enjoyed the fervent singing of Mordechai Ben-David, the elder statesman of Jewish performers.

Our son Ari and Ken Holtzman coaching Petah Tikvah Pioneers batter. Our grandchildren Razel, Maytav, Elianne and Tagel in our home.

We marveled at dog trainers working at the Israel Guide Dog Center for the Blind. A tractor driver passed us as we ate at a sidewalk café.

Hebrew University philosopher Martin Buber writes that the Jewish people is not formed through a static unity of the uniform,

But through the great dynamic unity of the multiform in which mutiformity is formed into unity of character. A new year's message for 5772.

Ki Tavo (When you come) כי תבוא

2011-09-11T08:38:00.017+03:00

9/11, Cybersight, jerUSAlem

Accursed is one who strikes his fellow stealthily. (Deuteronomy 27:24). ארור מכה רעהו בסתר ארור משגה עור בדרך

Accursed is one who misdirects the blind on their way (Deuteronomy 27:18)

On 9/11, Mel was at the graduation ceremony at the College of Judea and Samaria (now Ariel University) when he heard the horrific news.

The joy of his students, Jews and Arabs alike, was suddenly dashed by the ghastly strike of militant Islamists against the free world.

The free world must join Israel in defeating the accursed Islamists who are fighting to smother our planet with a tyrannical caliphate.

Accursed is one who misdirects the blind on their way (Deuteronomy 27:18)

To counteract evil, we transformed a biblical curse into a postdigital blessing by creating a global artwork the gives sight to the blind.

Our son Ari joined us in producing Cybersight. We asked people born blind what things they would most like to see if they had vision.

We interviewed them in Israel, the Czech Republic, and United States and sent questionnaires worldwide to schools for the blind.

We received responses from Australia, Ethiopia, Fiji, India, Korea, Lebanon, Lithuania, Niger, Poland, Slovenia, Zambia, and UK.

The amazing similarity of responses from such diverse cultures teaches us about the common vision of humanity.

They wanted to see things that they couldn't touch – from blue sky, clouds, lakes, oceans, forests, and mountains to sports events.

Through innovative technologies developed in Jerusalem, blind people could “see” pictures of these things through the sense of touch.

A grid of pin-like protrusions in a specially designed computer mouse traced the pictures on the blind person’s fingertips.

Here, we juxtapose images photographed for this blog with those submitted to our blogart project http://jerUSAlem-usa.blogspot.com.

Clouds hovering above the Sea of Galilee in Israel and the Straits of Galilee photographed from Jerusalem, Rhode Island.

A Green Mountain forest in Jerusalem, Vermont, named Jerusalem because it's the same altitude as the original Jerusalem.

Mt. Nebo, named after the biblical Mt. Nebo, photographed from Jerusalem, Utah, and the Moav mountain range east of the Dead Sea.

Moses climbed up from the western plains of Moav to Mt. Nebo from where God showed him all the Land of Israel. (Deuteronomy 34:1)

Mt. Nebo, Utah, is nearly five times as high as the original.

Mel photographed our son Ari pitching for the Petah Tikva Pioneers in an Israel Baseball League game in Tel Aviv.

Ki Teitzei (When you will go out) כי תצא

2011-09-04T13:12:00.008+03:00

Shook Shopping

For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp. (Deuteronomy 23:15) כי יהוה אלהך מתהלך בקרב מחנך

Seeing God walking in the midst of our daily life is the overriding theme of this entire Torah Tweets blogart project.

Mel photographed our daughter Iyrit shopping for Shabbat in the lively Petah Tikva shook (marketplace).

We repeat here the introductory comments at the top of this blog that emphasize the centrality of down-to-earth spirituality in Judaism.

Talmudic scholar Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik in his book Halakhic Man teaches that Judaism does not direct its gaze upward but downward.

It does not aspire to a heavenly transcendence, nor does it seek to soar upon the wings of some abstract, mysterious spirituality.

It fixes its gaze upon concrete, empirical reality permeating every nook and cranny of life.

The shook, the street, the factory, the house, the mall, the banquet hall, all constitute the backdrop of religious life.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem M. Schneerson, teaches that it is not enough for the Jew to rest content with his own spiritual ascent.

He must strive to draw spirituality down into the world and into every part of it from the world of his work to his social life.

His work and social life should not only not distract him from his pursuit of G-d, but they must become a full part of it.

American writer E. L. Doctorow in his novel City of God expresses the same thoughts poetically.

If there is a religious agency in our lives, it has to appear in the manner of our times.

Not from on high, but a revelation that hides itself in our culture.

It will be ground-level, on the street, it'll be coming down the avenue in the traffic, hard to tell apart from anything else.

Zionist Rabbi Abraham Y. Kook sees individual actions combine as a symphony of Jews living together as a sovereign nation in their own land.

The first message that Moses chose to teach the Jewish people as they were about to enter the Land of Israel was to fuse heaven to earth,

To enable the mundane to rise up and touch the Divine, the spiritual to vitalize the physical, not only as individuals but as a nation.

Shoftim (Judges) שופטים

2011-09-01T17:22:00.015+03:00

Green Leaves

You must not destroy trees by swinging an ax against them for from them you will eat. Do not cut them down because the tree of the field is man's life. (Deuteronomy 20:19) לא תשחית את עצה לנדח עליו גרזן כי ממנו תאכל ואתו לא תכרת כי האדם עץ השדה

When we were first married, Mel was a biology teacher teaching about the crucial role of trees in maintaining the global ecosystem.

He taught how trees draw water up through their roots, take in carbon dioxide through their leaves and transform them into sugar and oxygen.

The most important process in the world:
6H₂O + 6CO₂+ chlorophyll + sunlight yields C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂

Without it there'd be no life on our planet. Photosynthesis creates all the food we eat and the oxygen we breath.

Judaism develops from this biblical passage the ecological laws of bal tashhit (don't destroy) that even forbids destroying a mustard seed.

Judaism celebrates the New Year of the Trees on Tu B'shavat when we begin to see the blossoming of almond trees on our drive to Jerusalem.

The Torah is likened to a tree of life (Proverbs 3:18). A righteous person flourishes like a palm tree and grows tall like a cedar (Psalm 92).

We photographed the large leaves of the frangipani in front of our house, the bougainvillea on our porch and the ficus down the street.

Mel reveals beauty hidden within leaves by photographing them through a microscope on which he paints with pigments mixed into molten waxes.

His encaustic painting of the cellular organization within a pine leaf cross-section enlarged 600 times shows where photosynthesis happens.

We photographed new leaf growth sprouting from an old pine tree in the park near our house and date palms in Ein Gedi.

In the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, beauty (tiferet) is the innermost junction of 22 branches through which Divine light flows into our lives.

Re'eh (See) ראה

2011-08-22T11:36:00.012+03:00

Purple People

See, I present before you today a blessing and a curse…. God has chosen you from all the peoples on the face of the earth to be a special people. (Deuteronomy 11:26, 14:2) ראה אנכי נתן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה ובך בחר יהוה להיות לו לעם סגלה מכל העמים אשר על פני האדמה

In Hebrew, am segulah, a special people, is related to am segol, a purple people.

The Jewish People is assigned a special role to teach what every artist knows – that purple emerges from mixing blue with red.

Bringing the blue of sky down into the red (adom) of earth (adamah) lowers spirituality into the earth-bound world of physical reality.

Those who see spiritual sparks emerging from all aspects of their lives are blessed. It is a curse to not to be able to see these sparks.

The biblical charge to be a purple people is followed by rules for kosher eating, a spiritual practice rooted in daily mundane choices.

It teaches that spirituality mixed into ordinary material experiences can transform them into moments of extraordinary significance.

We live above a shopping center in Petah Tikva where purple jumps out at us in every shop:

Purple plums in greengrocer Avi's store. A purple vessel for ritual hand washing before meals in Shimon's mezuzah and tefillin store.

Purple shirts in Batya's menswear store. Tinkerbelles in purple boxes in Yosi's toy store.

Hamsters in purple cages in Liat's pet shop. And stamps with purple flowers in the post office.

Ekev (Reward, if) עקב

2011-08-21T09:15:00.014+03:00

KUZU = God in Motion

כוזו במוכסז כוזו = יהוה אלהינו יהוה

Bind them [torah words] as a sign upon your arm and let them be an ornament between your eyes. Teach your children to discuss them, when you sit in your home, while you walk on the way, and when you retire and arise. And write them on the doorposts of your houses and gates. (Deuteronomy 11:18-20) וקשרתם אתם לאות על ידכם והיו לטוטפות בין עיניכם ולמדתם אתם את בניכם לדבר בם בשבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך ובשכבך ובקומך וכתבתם על מזוזות ביתך ובשעריך

KUZU sets God YHVH in Motion

KUZU is written up-side-down on the outside of a parchment scroll placed in a mezuzah housing that is attached to a doorpost.

On the inside of this mini-torah scroll is "Hear O Israel, God YHVH is our Lord ELOHAYNU, God YHVH is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4)

K-U-Z-U is spelled with each of the Hebrew letters that follow Y-H-V-H. K follows Y; U follows H; Z follows V; and U follows H.

It is as if we were to write GOD as HPE, H being the letter following G, P the letter following O, and E the letter following D.

KUZU is written to teach that God, YHVH (Is-Was-Will be), cannot be experienced as a static object, but rather as dynamic process.

KUZU is written up-side-down to invite us to learn torah with our children from multiple vantage points as part of the flow of life.

Miriam created home size and synagogue size mezuzah housings in her ceramics studio in our former home in Teaneck, NJ.

She made a silver mezuzah housing as a medusa with tentacles that move when touched. The word mezuzah is derived from zaz (move).

In Guatemala, Mel carved a mezuzah housing from mahogany wood spiraling around a test tube capped with a 13 petal rose.

A Jew spirals a leather strap around his arm flowing out from the tefillin box. He then forms the Hebrew letter shin on his hand.

We see an embossed 3-branched letter shin on one side of the head tefillin with an extraordinary 4-branched shin on the other side.

The branching shin of ShaDaY, Divine nurturing, is revealed under KUZU on a mezuzah scroll that transforms a square into a spiral.

Spirals and branches symbolize living systems, from spiraling palms to branching cedars and from DNA to our circulatory and nervous systems.

It [torah] is a tree of life to those who grasp it. A righteous person will flourish like a date palm, like a Lebanon cedar he will grow tall. (Proverbs 4:2, Psalm 92:13)

Va'ethanan (Implored) אתחנן

2011-08-12T12:08:00.017+03:00

A Blog is an Ideal Torah Art Form

Do not make yourself a carved form or static image of that which is in the heaven above or on the earth below or in the water beneath the earth…. I am YHVH (Was-Is-Will be), your God, who brought you out of Mitzrayim (Egypt-Narrowness) from the confines of slavery…. Do not take the name of YHVH your God in vain. (Deuteronomy 5:8, 6, 11) לא תעשה לך פסל כל תמונה אשר בשמים ממעל ואשר בארץ מתחת ואשר במים מתחת לארץ אנוכי יהוה אלהיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים מבית עבדים לא תשא את שם יהוה אלהיך לשוא

The second of the Ten Commandments, not exclusively addressed to artists, asks us not to transform living processes in inert forms.

We can best understand the second commandment in context of the first and third. Do not carve in stone that which is in flux.

The first Commandment can be rephrased as: "I am Was-Is-Will be, your God, who brought you out of the narrow constraints of a slave mentality."

YHVH is a verb, not a noun. It combines the words for was, is and will be, linking past and present to redemptive future.

Do not freeze the process of creation and historical process into fixed images that limit our experience of an infinite God.

Do not even limit the Infinite by assigning God a name. In Hebrew conversation, we call God Hashem, literally "The Name," a nameless God.

Indeed, the Divine names in the torah are not God's names, but rather facets of emanations of Divine light into our everyday world.

YHVH is associated with Tiferet, Divine beauty created through dynamic interaction with all the other emanations of Divine light.

A blog is an ideal torah art form, a log of a living process in a networked world, rather than still life entombed in a golden frame.

Sunday, 7 Av: Our youngest grandchild, Avraham Matityahu, is playing in our living room. He is named for Mel's father and uncle.

Monday, 8 Av: Mel was at Ariel University to send papers documenting his life to Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian in Washington.

Tuesday, 9 Av: We mourn the destruction of the 1^st and 2^nd Jewish commonwealths attributed to baseless hatred, sinat hinam.

Today's antidote is ahavat hinam, unconditional love, exemplified by Miriam's three siblings and their families.

Channa's family is Lubavich. Hans' children are Belz Hassidim. Ezra rides a motorcycle wearing a knitted kippa symbolizing religious Zionism.

We see the bar mitzvah celebration of Channa's grandson where black fedoras, mink striemels and knitted kippot celebrate together.

Wednesday, 10 Av: Every year, we light a memorial candle honoring Mel's father, Avraham ben Mordecai, who passed away on the 10^th of Av.

He always made people happy. In his death, he extended the day of national mourning rather than disrupt the flow of mourners' lives.

Thursday, 11 Av: It's our granddaughter Tali's 18^th birthday. She's a counselor at Camp Ramah and will be serving in the IDF in the Fall.

Friday, 12 Av: Don't make a carved form or static image. The Jewish thing to do is make art to eat. We made a banana cake for Shabbat.

Miriam measured out the ingredients while Mel mashed the bananas. Our art is a tasty version of Internet images of the surface of Mars.

Devarim (Words) דברים

2011-08-04T10:12:00.010+03:00

Realizing Isaiah's Vision (Hazon)

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel…. "God our Lord spoke to us at Horeb, saying: 'Enough of your dwelling by this mountain. Turn yourselves around and journey'…. See! I have given the Land before you. Come and possess the Land that God swore that He would give to your forefathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their descendants after them." (Deuteronomy 1:1, 6-8) אלה הדברים אשר דבר משה אל כל ישראל יהוה אלהינו דבר אלינו בחרב לאמר רב לכם שבת בהר הזה פנו וסעו לכם ראה נתתי לפניכם את הארץ באו ורשו את הארץ אשר נשבע יהוה לאבתיכם לאברהם ליצחק וליעקב לתת לחם ולזרעם אחריהם

The vision of Isaiah .… Learn to do good, seek justice, relieve the oppressed, render justice to the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:1, 17) חזון ישעיהו למדו היטב דרשו משפט אשרו חמוץ שפטו יתום ריבו אלמנה

Moses challenges Israelites to journey beyond theory heard at Horeb (Mt. Sinai) to its implementation in the Land they are about to enter.

On Shabbat Hazon (Vision), we link our reading Devorim in synagogue with Isaiah's vision of doing good and seeking justice in our Land.

It is followed by the 9^th of Av when we mourn our ruin and exile for our failure to implement Isaiah's vision 2 millennia ago.

The Talmud teaches that mourning will turn to joy as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob regain sovereignty over the Land of Israel.

The mourners will merit an outburst of joy as they transform the theory of Horeb into practice and the vision of Isaiah into reality.

We saw those transformations at Emunah's Achuzat Sara Children's Home in Bnei Brak, a place that 130 children consider to be their home.

Headmaster Shmuel Ron told us that the aim of his work is to put smiles on the faces of orphaned, abandoned, neglected, and abused children.

He has worked in partnership with his wife for 30 years to evoke smiles by providing the love, security and encouragement of a warm home.

Achuzat Sara helps its children gain self-esteem, develop emotionally and spiritually, and grow into responsible and productive adults.

The children are encouraged to cultivate their talents in areas ranging from art, music and theater to sports, computers and science.

The dismal picture of the past painted by Moses and Isaiah transformed into a vision of a bright future is what we see at Achuzat Sara.

See http://www.achuzatsara.org.il/en

Masei (Journeys) מסעי

2011-07-27T08:47:00.016+03:00

Moving On

These are the journeys of the Israelites, who left Egypt in organized groups under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Moses recorded their stops along the way at God's bidding. (Numbers 32:1-2) אלה מסעי בני ישראל אשר יצאו מארץ מצרים לצבאתם ביד משה ואהרון ויכתב משה את מוצאיהם למסעיהם על פי יהוה

Why "journeys" in plural? Only the 1^st of the 42 journeys recorded was going out of Egypt (Mitzrayim in Hebrew, meaning narrowness).

The Talmud teaches that we should see ourselves each day as if we traveled out of Egypt, away from narrow-minded thinking.

The 12 spies "explored the Land from the wilderness of Tzin to Rehov" (Numbers 13:21). Rehov intimates expansiveness.

When Joshua sent spies to observe the Land, they "arrived at the house of a woman innkeeper named Rahav." Rahav means wide open.

How can the expansive consciousness forged by 42 journeys through the open vistas of the desert shape our lives in the Land of Israel?

"From the narrow straits (metzar) I called upon God; God answered me with expansiveness (merhav)." (Psalm 118:5).

"The Land through which we have passed to explore is a land that devours yoshveha (inhabitants who sit still)" (Numbers 13:32).

The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches: "The Jew was not created to stand still. There is always a new journey before him."

Miriam and her family moved from Parimaribo (Suriname) to Hibat Tzion in 1949 when she was 9 years old.

Our journey from New York to Ra'anana with our 3 children in 1969 has invited fresh journeys emerging daily from our creative life in Israel.

While Miriam was creating a new home for us, Mel was teaching creativity and interdisciplinary learning at Tel Aviv University.

Mel also journeyed to Jerusalem twice a week to teach at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and develop its academic curriculum.

We moved from Ra'anana to Haifa where we worked together to create an Experimental School at the University, the 1^st open school in Israel.

We moved from Haifa to Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi where Mel realized his Catskill Mountains childhood dream of being a Jewish farmer.

We moved to Yeroham to create a regional college in the Negev where Miriam taught ceramics. Our 4th child was born there in 1982.

Mel headed the college, taught there and journeyed once a week from Yeroham to Ramat Gan to teach at Bar Ilan University.

We moved to Petah Tikva 11 years ago where we now work together creating this Torah Tweets blogart project and on being grandparents.

Mel journeyed from Petah Tikva to Ariel where he taught at the university and to Jerusalem where he heads Emuna College School of the Arts.

Mattot מטות

2011-07-20T17:41:00.011+03:00

Talking Rocks and Trees

None of the men over 20 years old who left Egypt will see the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob since they did not follow me wholeheartedly. The only exceptions will be Calev son of Yefuneh, the independent one, and Joshua son of Nun. (Numbers 32:11-12) אם יראו האנשים העלים ממצרים מבן עשרים שנה ומעלה את האדמה אשר נשבעתי לאברהם ליצחק וליעקב כי לא מלאו אחרי בלתי כלב בן יפנה הקנזי ויהושע בן נון

God said, "The only exception will be My servant Calev, since he showed a different spirit and followed Me wholeheartedly. I will bring him to the land that he explored, and his descendants will possess it." (Numbers 14:24) ועבדי כלב עקב היתה רוח אחרת עמו וימלא אחרי והביאתיו אל הארץ אשר בה שמה וזרעו יורשנה

Calev's different spirit and independent thought is sorely needed by Calev's descendants who have resettled the Land of Israel in our day.

Only Calev could see that a peaceful future would be realized by Joshua leading an army to defeat the enemies of the Children of Israel.

3,500 years after the Israelites settled in Judea and Samaria on the west bank of the Jordan River, Israel faces an enemy there.

During the week we read Mattot, we remember on the 17^th day of Tamuz the Roman siege of Jerusalem 1,941 years ago ending in ruin and exile.

As we mourn this loss, a face-to-face survey of Arab adults in Judea, Samaria and Gaza revealed the depth of their hatred of Jews. (Conducted with the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion)

When given a quote from the Hamas charter of the need for Arab and Islamic battalions to defeat the Jews and annihilate Israel, 80% agreed.

73% agreed with the Hamas charter: “Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims.... Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him…. I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.”

66% said that their real goal should be to start with a 2-state solution as a steppingstone to conquering all of Israel.

92% would not agree to Jerusalem remaining the capital of Israel. 72% denied the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem.

What are we to do when the majority of our "Peace Partners" are in favor of teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools?

Perhaps our Arab neighbors should study the Qur'an that teaches that the right of the Jews to the Land of Israel is the will of Allah:

“Remember when Moses said to his people: ‘O my people, call in remembrance the favor of God unto you, when he produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the nations. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and then turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.’” (Qur'an, Sura 5:22-23)

See our Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East at http://aestheticpeace.blogspot.com

Pinhas פינחס

2011-07-15T11:50:00.015+03:00

Sight and Insight

God said to Moses, "Go up to this mountain of Avarim and see the Land that I have given to the Children of Israel. You shall see it." (Numbers 27:12) ויאמר יהוה אל משה עלה אל הר העברים הזה וראה את הארץ אשר נתתי לבני ישראל וראיתה אתה

And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing (Zekhariah 8:5) ורחובות חעיר ימלאו ילדים וילדות משחקים

God said to Abram, "Go for yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that you will come to see." (Genesis 12:1) ויאמר יהוה אל אברם לך לך מארצך וממולדתך ומבית אביך אל הארץ אשר אראך

Why is "see" repeated twice? At first glance, Moses saw the Dead Sea and desert. Then, he saw the future of his people in their land.

Rabbi Haim ben Attar explained that Moses gained a deeper vision and grasp of the inner spiritual essence of life in the Land of Israel. (Or Hahaim)

Moses saw boys and girls playing in the Land of Israel. Their play integrates seeing with their kinesthetic, tactile and auditory senses.

Rabbi Kook's metaphor for Israel's rebirth after its long exile is a child awakening from a coma asking to play with her doll.

The Jewish people's story begins by linking kinesthetic and visual senses. Abram sees the land in a new light by walking away from his past.

On receiving the Ten Commandments, the torah tells of the Israelites' synesthetic experience: All the people saw the sounds (Exodus 20:15) וכל העם ראים את הקולת.

Passive hearing is transformed into internalized visions of the script for creating a better world being enacted on the world stage.

Our sages transform the most powerful auditory mitzvah into a visual one: Hear O Israel, God is our Lord, God is One (Deuteronomy 6:4) שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד.

We follow reading "Hear O Israel" from the torah scroll by reading Raise your eyes on high and see who created these (Isaiah 40:26) שאו מרום עיניכם וראו מי ברא אלה.

The Hebrew word for "hear" is SheMA, spelled Shin, Mem, Ayin. It is an acronym for Se'u Marom Aynaykhem, "Raise your eyes on high."

The torah formula for transforming sight into insight is: May God expand Yefet, but he will dwell in the tents of Shem (Genesis 9:27) יפת אלהים ליפת וישכן באהלי שם.

The Hebrew word yaft means to expand, related to yafah (visual beauty) and the name of Noah's son Yefet. Yefet's son is Yavan (Greece).

Beauty in ancient Greece is seen in the elegance of outward form. Israel descends from Shem, related to shemiyah (hearing).

Jews are charged with inviting this surface beauty into Israel's tents where light emanating from the sound of torah illuminates it from within.

Torah beauty is tiferet the innermost emanation of divine light that integrates our intentions, thoughts and feelings through creative play.

Balak בלק

2011-07-08T13:33:00.012+03:00

Community Honoring Individuality

Balak son of Tzipor was then king of Moab…. He sent emissaries to Bilaam to summon him, saying, "Behold, a people has come out of Egypt…come and curse this people for me." Bilaam raised his eyes and saw Israel dwelling according to their tribes and the divine spirit was upon him…. He declaimed his parable and said: "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel, stretching out like brooks, like gardens by a river, like aloes planted by God, like cedars by water. Water shall flow from its wells and his seed shall be by abundant waters." (Numbers 22:4, 5, 6, 24: 2, 3, 5-7) ובלק בן ציפר מלך למואב בעת ההוא וישלח מלאכים אל בלעם לקרא לו לאמר הנה עם יצה ממצרים ועתה לכה נא ארה לי את העם הזה וישא בלעם את עיניו וירא את ישראל שכן לשבטיו ותהי רוח אלהים וישא משלו ויאמר מה טובו אהליך יעקב משכנתיך ישראל כנחלים נטיו כגנת עלי נהר כאהלים נטע יהוה כארזיםעלי מים יזל מים מדליו וזרעו במים רבים

What is good and what God requires of you: Only to do justly and love kindness and walk humbly with God. (Micha 6:8) הגיד לך אדם מה טוב ומה יהוה דורש ממך כי אם עשות משפט ואהבת חסד והצנע לכם אלהיך

When Solomon, descendent of Ruth the Moabite, was king of Israel, his wisdom linking eruv and n'tilat yadayim elicited Divine rejoicing. (Talmud: Eruvin 21b and Shabbat 14b)

An eruv is a boundary integrating private properties into a joint communal domain that makes life more pleasant for Sabbath observers.

N'tilat yadayim is a hand-washing ritual performed each morning to celebrate the wonder of wakefulness and before meals to sanctify life.

An eruv creates community while n'tilat yadayim is a private act of holding up hands to reveal fingerprints that highlight individuality.

Balak is a descendent of Moab, son of Lot who separated from his uncle Abraham to live in Sodom where contempt for human diversity was policy.

We surrounded a hill at the site of the demolished evil Sodom with an eruv constructed from 7 telephone poles connected by rope lintels.

Along the hill's ridge, 10 different hand-washing vessels created by Miriam's students reflected the distinctive vision of each student.

Our environmental artwork teaches that the highest good is reached when we create community that honors what is unique in every person.

Creating community that pays tribute to the emergence of individuality and facilitates its free expression invites God's highest joy.

It is this messianic vision of good that Bilaam saw emerging from the dwelling places of Israel.

In his failed attempt to have Bilaam curse Israel, Balak unwittingly elicited a blessing for his descendent Ruth.

Rabbi Avi Weiss points out that we have come full circle. Ruth takes heroic strides to embrace Abraham's family that Lot had left for Sodom.

Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back from following you. For where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people are my people, and your God is my God." (Book of Ruth 1:16)

Hukat (Decree) חקת

2011-06-29T15:59:00.009+03:00

Miriam's Well

The entire Israelite community came to the Tzin Wilderness in the first month and the people stopped in Kadesh. It was there that Miriam died and was buried. The people did not have any water, so they began demonstrating against Moses and Aaron. (Numbers 20:1, 2) ויבאו בני ישראל כל העדה מדבר צן בחדש הראשון וישב העם בקדש ותמת שם מרים ותקבר שם ולא היה מים לעדה ויקחלו על משה ועל אהרון

In the Tzin Wilderness where Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, ended her journey, the 7 torah letters crowned with tagin ascended.

Little 3-pronged tagin crown letters of heavy words of hardship to lighten them for their heavenward ascent when the torah is read.

Hebrew letters in the everyday world meet tagin in the emotional world where compassion, strength, success, and splendor surround beauty.

On a rocky cliff overlooking the Tzin Wilderness, Mel and his students attached tagin made of 3 balloons to each rainbow painted letter.

As the weather balloons filled with hydrogen (helium was not available) ascended, an eagle spiraled up around them.

Miriam's brothers ascended to mountain tops and engaged in priestly rites while she brought spirituality down to earth – torah to water.

Miriam's life was linked to water. She saved baby Moses floating on the Nile and led singing and dancing on crossing the Red Sea.

The Israelites were sustained by water from Miriam's well that followed them through their desert wanderings.

The Arizal, Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught that on entering the Land of Israel, Miriam's well reappeared gushing water beneath the Sea of Galilee.

He took his student Chaim Vital in a boat on the Sea above Miriam's well, opposite pillars of an old synagogue, and gave him water to drink.

The Arizal said, "Now you will attain wisdom from this water." From then on, Chaim Vital felt he was entering the depths of torah wisdom.

Korah קרח

2011-06-22T08:24:00.008+03:00

Four Wings of America

Speak to the Israelites and say to them that they shall make themselves tzitzit on the corner wings of their garments for all generations. And they shall include in the tzitzit of each corner wing a thread of sky-blue wool…. I am God your Lord who brought you out of Egypt. (Numbers 15:38, 41) דבר אל בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם ועשו להם ציצת על כנפי בגדיהם לדרתם ונתנו על ציצית הכנף פתיל תכלת אני יהוה אלהיכם אשר הוצאתי אתכם מארץ מצרים

Korah son of Izhar son of Kehat son of Levi began a rebellion along with Datan and Aviram sons of Eliav…. Moses sent forth to summon Datan and Aviram sons of Eliav. They responded, "We won't come! Isn't it enough that you brought us out of [Egypt], a land flowing with milk and honey to cause us to die in the desert!" (Numbers 16:1, 12-13) ויקח קרח בן יצהר בן קהת בן לוי ודתן ואבירם בני אליאב וישלח משה לקרא לדתן ולאבירם בני אליאב ויאמדו לא נעלה המעט כי העליתנו מארץ זבת חלב ודבש להמיתנו במידבר

Korah rebelled against Moses by challenging the call for a sky-blue thread in the tassels flowing from the corners of a prayer shawl.

"Isn't a talit (prayer shawl) woven entirely with sky-blue wool exempt from the one sky-blue thread in each of the 4 tzitzit (tassels)?"

Moses replied that one is still obligated to tie a sky-blue thread in the tzitzit independent of the color of the rectangular tallit.

The SaPphiRe thread suggests a heavenly realm SPiRaling through the ordinary white threads to bring SPiRitual energies to everyday life.

An all sky-blue tallit symbolizes a totally spiritual life separated from the mundane. This viewpoint negates the biblical view:

"For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp." (Deuteronomy 23:15)

Kanfot, the Hebrew word for 'corners' of garments, is also used for 'corners' of the earth as in the biblical prophesy (Isaiah 11:12).

"He will ingather the dispersed ones of Judah from the four corner wings (kanfot) of the earth."

Before donning a talit, a Jew says, "May the talit spread its wings (kanfav) like an eagle rousting his nest, fluttering over its eaglets."

The foremost biblical commentator Rashi links corners and wings: "The tzitzit are placed 'on the corners (kanfot) of their garments,'

alluding to God having freed the Israelites from Egypt, as it states, 'and I carried you on the wings (kanfot) of eagles.'"

When the City of Miami asked us to create the official artwork for its centennial, we proposed placing tzitzit on the 4 corners of America.

American Airlines, the largest US corporation in the wing business, agreed to sponsor our Four Wings of America project.

We flew to Maine where we placed a large rope tzitzit with a sky-blue strand on barnacle-encrusted boulders at the Atlantic Ocean.

We attached a tzitzit to a tree on the beach of a balmy Florida bay where the blue of the sky colored the sea water.

On the Pacific coast, a Mexican boy watched the tzitzit shuddering in the wind hanging from the wall separating San Diego from Tijuana.

From Seattle, we drove to Neah Bay, an Indian reservation at the end of the Olympia Peninsula in Washington State to place the 4^th tzitzit.

Shelah (Send forth) שלח

2011-06-17T16:31:00.011+03:00

A Different Spirit

Send forth men, if you please, and let them explore the land of Canaan that I give to the Israelites…. They brought forth to the Israelites a disparaging report on the land that they had explored.... Among the men who explored the land, Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Yefuneh tore their clothes in grief. They said to the whole Israelite community, "The Land that we passed through to explore is a very, very good Land!" (Numbers 13:1, 32, 14:6-7) שלח לך אנשים ויתרו את ארץ כנען אשר אני נתן לבני ישראל ויציאו דבת הארץ אשר תרו אתה אל בני ישראל ויהושע בן נון וכלב בן יפנה מן התרים את הארץ קרעו בגדיהם ואמרו אל כל עדת בני ישראל לאמר הארץ אשר עברנו בה לתור אתה טובה הארץ מאד מאד

10 of the spies feared that entering Canaan would rob them of a purely spiritual life and force upon them the drudgery left behind in Egypt.

They opposed giving up their undemanding life in the desert where free meals were delivered to their doorstep each weekday morning.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that "The miracles which sustained the Jews in the wilderness were not the apex of spiritual existence."

"They were only a preparation for the real task: taking possession of the Land of Israel and making it a holy land."

"The purpose of life lived in torah is not the elevation of the soul; it is the sanctification of the world."

Only Joshua and Calev with his "different spirit" could recognize the spiritual in mundane tasks and hard work when accomplished in freedom.

The leaders of the 10 tribes who did not discern the difference between acting in freedom and as slaves were condemned to die in the desert.

Calev saw that the same activities forced on us as slaves in Egypt could be transformed into acts of spiritual significance when done freely.

He was rewarded for rejecting the belief that spirituality flourishes best in seclusion and protected isolation.

God said, "The only exception will be My servant Calev, since he showed a different spirit and followed Me wholeheartedly. I will bring him to the land that he explored, and his descendants will possess it." (Numbers 14:24)

In our day, the descendants of Calev of the tribe of Judah are being ingathered from the four corners of the earth to the Land of Israel.

Most Jews in Israel descend from the tribe of Judah. Most descendants of those tribes that rejected entering the Land are the lost tribes.

Nazi troops attempted to humiliate a Hassidic Rebbe by forcing him at gunpoint to sweep streets and collect garbage daily.

After surviving the Holocaust, the Rebbe began a new life in Tel Aviv.

During the week before Israel Independence Day each year, he joined Tel Aviv sanitation workers in sweeping streets and collection garbage.

His hard work as a free man keeping his city clean transformed humiliation into an expression of pride.

Look for holy sparks emerging from all we do in freedom in our sovereign State of Israel:

From birthing a calf, baking pizza, defending our country, paving roads, sweeping streets to collecting garbage.

Beha'alotkha (Lift up) בהעלתך

2011-06-15T08:40:00.011+03:00

Cows, DNA and Solar Menorah

When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall illuminate the face of the menorah …. This is the workmanship of the menorah, hammered from a single piece of gold from its base to its flowers. (Numbers 8:1, 4)

When we study worldly wisdoms represented by the 7 branches of the menorah in light of torah, the lamps of the menorah shine brightly. (Chatam Sofer)

The menorah, symbol of the Jewish people since ancient times, adorns the entrance to the Knesset and is the seal of the State of Israel.

We participated in the annual award ceremony at the Knesset honoring the world's best scientists and artists with the coveted Wolf Prizes.

Mel was appointed to the Council of the Wolf Foundation by the President of Israel on recommendation of the Minister of Education.

Wolf Prizes are awarded in Jerusalem in the fields of agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, physics, art, music, and architecture.

Later in the week, we participated in the International Conference on Art, Science and Technology in the Galilee city of Karmiel.

Mel illuminated wordly wisdom with torah insights in his lecture on a kabbalistic model of creative process in art and science.

Dr. Eugene Katz, of the Institute for Desert Research lectured on bridges between mathematics, natural sciences, art and architecture.

His research on solar energy at Sde Boker created a solar panel menorah tilted up towards the sun to generate electricity to light up homes.

Translated as 'lighting,' beha'alotkha literally means 'lift up.' Worldly knowledge is spiritually elevated seen through torah lenses.

Integral interconnectedness of all branches of knowledge is symbolized by the menorah being hammered from a single piece of gold.

The menorah's branching form joins the spiral form of the torah scroll to represent Judaism as living systems like flowering trees and DNA.

At the Knesset dinner, we sat with California Prof. Harris Lewin who was awarded the Wolf Prize for his contributions to animal genetics.

In his acceptance speech, he related how his interest in the genetics of cows was sparked by his work with them on a kibbutz when he was 17.

Naso/Yom Yerushalayim (Lift up/Jerusalem Day) נשא/יום ירושלים

2011-06-07T11:15:00.016+03:00

JeruSalem Is SeeingPeace

(Guest blogger for Naso/Yom Yerushalayim is our creative granddaughter Shirel Alexenberg who was born on Jerusalem Day 17 years ago. She celebrated the liberation of Jerusalem photographing the Old City. Shirel שיראל is written with the same Hebrew letters as Israel ישראל. She is entering her final year of high school at Ulpanat Baharan.)

May God bless you and safeguard you. May God make His countenance enlighten you and grant you grace. May God lift His countenance to you and grant you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26) יברכך יהוה וישמרך יאר יהוה פניו אליך ויחנך ישא יהוה פניו אליך ושם לך שלום

Rav Kook writes: "An imperviousness to God’s intervention in history plagues our generation. A series of wondrous events is taking place before us. Yet blind eyes fail to see the hand of God and deaf ears fail to hear the Divine call guiding history."

Liberate people who are blind though they have eyes and deaf thought they have ears. Isaiah 43:8

Naso's section about the Tabernacle's dedication is read on Hanukah to celebrate the 165 BCE liberation of Jerusalem from foreign occupation.

Shirel photographed the 17^th century Raban Yohanan Ben Zakai Synagogue rebuilt after having been demolished by the Arabs in 1948.

It stands on the site of the Beit Midrash of Yohanan ben Zakai who established the Sanhedrin after the destruction of the Second Temple.

When Jerusalem fell to the Romans, he reestablished his Beit Midrash in Yavne where a plan for survival for the next 2 millennia was created.

On the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount are huge stones from a massive arch wrecked by the Roman legions 1,941 years ago.

Today, Israeli flags adorn walls of the rebuilt Jewish Quarter of the Old City to celebrate the 44th anniversary of restored Jewish sovereignty.

Only the Jews have made Jerusalem its sovereign capital since King David moved it from Hebron three millennia ago.

From 70 to 1967, Jerusalem was ruled by foreign powers: Romans, Byzantines, Persians, Arab Caliphates, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, British and Jordanians.

In 1967, Israel restored its sovereignty over all of Jerusalem after liberating it in a war waged by the Arabs to annihilate Israel.

And Meir Yehuda Getz, late Rabbi of the Western Wall, restored the Yohanan Ben Zakai Synagogue and Beit El Yeshivat Hamekubalim that he headed.

Shirel's father Ron has studied for many years at this yeshiva with its current head Rabbi Yisrael Avihai from Yeroham where Shirel lives.

May God lift His countenance to you and grant you peace. JeruSalem means SeeingPeace.

Bamidbar (In the desert) במדבר

2011-05-25T12:55:00.012+03:00

Aesthetic Peace

Take a census of each individual in the Israelite community by families… count all those fit for army service. (Numbers 1:2, 3) שאו את ראש כל עדת בני ישראל למשפחתם כל יצא צבה בישראל תפקדו אתם

Four of our grandsons are serving in the Israel Defense Forces protecting us from enemies committed to Israel's destruction:

Tamir earning his paratrooper's wings, Yishai at his medic's course graduation, Or in army intelligence, Moshe at Warsaw ghetto memorial.

Rashi tells us that counting every soul equally is an act of divine love that honors what is unique in each individual.

When Mel served in the IDF, we had hoped that our children and grandchildren would live in our land at peace with all our neighbors.

Netanyahu made it clear in his address to the US Congress that peace can only come when the Arabs accept a Jewish State in their midst.

However, all peace processes from Oslo to Obama are doomed to failure because the conflict is not political but aesthetic and religious.

At his Aesthetic Peace exhibition in Prague, Mel explains to the ambassadors of Israel and US about his peace plan derived from Islamic art.

Behind them is a painting of a pattern from a Damascus mosque superimposed on a map of the Islamic world in which Israel is a counter pattern.

The continuously repeated geometric patterns in Islamic art are perceived by Arabs as spreading across North Africa and the Middle East.

They see Israel as a blemish that disrupts the pattern, an alien presence they try to eliminate through war, terrorism and political action.

Rug weavers from Islamic lands intentionally weave a patch of dissimilar pattern to break the symmetry of their rugs.

Since only Allah creates perfection, they purposely disrupt the uniform pattern to demonstrate that human creation is less than perfect.

Peace will come from a fresh metaphor in which the Arabs see Israel’s existence as Allah’s will.

Perceiving Israel as the necessary counter-pattern in the overall pattern of the Islamic world will usher in an era of peace.

The Arab world needs Israel to realize its own aesthetic and religious values. Perhaps art can succeed where politics has failed.

See Aesthetic Peace blog http://aestheticpeace.blogspot.com/

Behukotai (In my statues) בחקתי

2011-05-20T12:02:00.009+03:00

Torah in a Potato

If you will walk in my statutes…I will keep my sanctuary in your midst. (Leviticus 26:3, 11) אם בחקתי תלכו ונתתי משכני בתוככם

Behukotai, the final chapter of Leviticus, sums up both the 3^rd book of the Bible and the entire vision of our Torah Tweets blogart project.

This blog begins with the torah quote that sets its direction: For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp (Deuteronomy 23:15).

The first Lubavicher Rebbe explains that the word hok (statute) is derived from the same root as engraving, hewing or carving out.

An engraved letter does not exist as a distinct entity independent of the material out of which it is carved.

Hok suggests that torah study should be like carving letters out of everyday life so that torah and our lives are integrally one.

This mode of torah study is a deeper level than study from hand-written or printed letters that join ink and paper – two separate things.

The Talmud invites us to read HaLakHaH (Jewish law) as HaLikHaH (walking).

Walk in my statutes teaches that we best come to know through movement in torah spaces creatively carved out of our lives.

If we make torah and our lives integrally one, we will be rewarded with material blessings of bountiful crops and abundant fruit.

All the torah is in a potato if we reveal it by carving out Hebrew letters that have no separate existence from the potato itself.

The blessings in the opening verses of Behukotai begin with alef (in im/if) and end with tav (in komemiyut/upright in verse 13).

Alef to tav is the entire alphabet, alef the 1^st letter and tav the last. The letter lamed in the word teLekhu/walk means to learn.

Behar (At Mt. Sinai) בהר

2011-05-15T08:52:00.008+03:00

Action Angels & Bicycles

(Guest blogger for Behar is our sabra grandson Or Alexenberg. Behar is his bar mitzvah parsha. He is a talented photographer and serious cyclist who completed his service in an IDF intelligence unit last week.)

I am God your Lord who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan. (Leviticus 25:38)אני יהוה אלהיכם אשר הוצאתי אתכם מארץ מצרים

When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall observe a Sabbath rest for God. For 6 years you may sow your field and for 6 years you may prune your vineyard and you may gather in its crop. But the 7^th year shall be a complete rest for the land. (Leviticus 25:1-4)כי תבאו אל הארץ אשר אני נתן לכם ושבתה הארץ שבת ליהוה שש שנים תזרע שדך ושש שנים תזמר כרמך ואספת את תבואתה ושנה השביעת שבת שבתון

Behar evokes loving care for the Land of Israel as we celebrate our 63^rdIndependence Day more than 3 millennia after our exodus from Egypt.

Miriam remembers her mother baking and decorating cakes for Israel's 1^st Independence Day celebration in Hibat Tzion (Love of Zion).

In Behar, we are led from the exodus to receiving the torah at Mt. Sinai to entering our land with ecological consciousness.

Rav Kook links the Sabbatical Year to the Sabbath Day, the 7^th year to the 7^th day. Both invite us to enjoy the world the way we got it.

Six days you shall do your work and on the 7th day you must rest. (Exodus 23:12)

Judaism is a way of life that emphasizes action, working and planting. However, 7^th day and 7^th year are Ecology Day and Ecology Year.

Angels in the World of Action (Asiyah) are bits and bytes of consciousness of everyday life called ofanim. Bicycles are ofanayim.

We act as partners of God in continuing creation for 6 days and 6 years. On the 7^th, we stop our intervention and enjoy God's creations.

Walking in the Negev desert where we lived for 7 years, we saw divinity in the sudden sight of a tiny flower blooming in the parched earth.

Our rabbi-biologist son Ron still lives there where he has been teaching the torah roots of ecological consciousness for 20 years.

Ron's oldest son Or uses the most ecologically-friendly mode of transportation to bicycle from the verdant Galilee to the arid Negev.

Or loves the Land of Israel from the Banyas waters to the desert hills to the oasis lake at the edge of his home town of Yeroham.

Through his camera lens, Or reveals the beauty of a camel in the wilderness and a donkey and stray dogs that wandered into a playground.

Or photographed Lake Yeroham from a distant hilltop and the 63^rd Independence Day celebration in the Yeroham town center.

Emor (Say) אמר

2011-05-06T10:54:00.015+03:00

Photographing God

You shall count for yourselves 7 complete weeks after the day following the Passover holiday when you brought the omer as a wave offering, until the day after the seventh week you shall count 50 days. (Leviticus 23:15-16) וספרתם לכם ממחרת השבת מיום הביאכם את עמר התנופה שבע שבתות תמימת תהיינה עד ממחרת השבת השביעת תספרו חמישים יום

God is the compassion, the strength, the beauty, the success, the splendor, and the foundation of everything in heaven and earth. (1 Chronicles 29:11) לך יהוה הגדלה חסד והגבורה והתפארת והנצח וההוד כי כל יסוד בשמים ובארץ

We count each of the 49 days from when we were freed from our enslavement in Egypt until we arrived at Mt. Sinai – from Passover to Shavuot.

Unlike slaves who live repeated days of drudgery, free people can feel and appreciate the unique character to each day.

As each of the 49 days is counted, it is given a different name integrating one of the 7 divine attributes into one of 7 divine attributes.

These attributes (7 of the 10 sephirot in kabbalah) are:

Hesed: Compassion / Largess / Loving All

Gevurah: Strength / Judgment / Setting Limits

Tifert: Beauty / Aesthetic Balance / Inner Elegance

Netzakh: Success / Orchestration / Eternity

Hod: Splendor / Gracefulness / Magnificence

Yesod: Foundation / Integrating All/ Gateway to Action

Malkhut: the world of action in space and time.

Mel photographed a Greek fishing boat in Elouda that brought to mind the gevurah of his great-grandfather Elchanan, a fisherman in Salonika.

After generations in Greece, Elchanan had the strength to take his family in his boat to Odessa where it was better for Jews 150 years ago.

Elchanan's son Mordechai left Odessa for America in 1886 where his son Abraham was born. Mel (Menahem ben Avraham) moved to Israel in 1969.

Mel asked his students at Ariel University to photograph each of the 6 attributes of feeling realized in their everyday world of malkhut.

Keren saw hesed as an elderly man responding to feral cats hungry for love and food. He pets each one and portions out food for them.

Roni photographed the birth of a calf, an awesome event expressing tifert, deeply felt beauty of seeing new life coming into the world.

Esti's father breeds parrots. She sees netzakh as a parrot chick succeeding in freeing itself from its egg continuing the cycle of life.

Yael sees hod as the glorious feeling of young lovers kissing. She photographed the shadow of the event.

She reveals the link between the Hebrew word hod (splendor) and hed (echo). Yael sees a shadow as a visual equivalent of an echo in sound.

Yesod is five generations of our family. We celebrated Eliad's first birthday and the 100th birthday of Miriam's mother Anna Benjamin.

Behind her are her granddaughter Iyrit and her great-granddaughter Inbal. Her great-great-grandson Eliad is sitting on Miriam's lap.

See more about photographing God at www.photographgod.com

Kedoshim (Holy)

2011-05-02T19:22:00.010+03:00

Higher Than Sky
For 3 years the fruit shall be forbidden to you, they shall not be eaten. In the 4^th year, all its fruit shall be holy to praise God. And in the 5^th year, you may eat its fruit and thus increase your crop. (Leviticus 19:23-25) שלוש שנים יהיה לכם ערלים לא יאכל ובשנה הרביעת יהיה כל פריו קדש הלולים ליהוה ובשנה החמישת תאכלו את פריו להוסיף לכם תבואתו

While in Crete, we studied the Lubavitcher Rebbe's explanation that the fruit of a tree's first 4 years correspond to 4 worlds of being:

From the material world of Action, affective world of Formation, cognitive world of Creation, up to the holy spiritual world of Emanation.

However, the 5^th year when the fruit can be eaten anywhere by anyone is the highest level, higher than holiness that transcends the world.

The fruit of the 5^th year are most precious because they bring holiness down into the very midst of a world-affirming life.

Action (Asiyah) is our everyday world of ice-cream delivery trucks, motor scooters and merry-go-round horses. (We took all 6 photos in Crete.)

Formation (Yetzirah) is the world of our feelings and emotions that manipulate our strings like many dangling Pinocchio marionettes.

Creation (Beriah) is the creative world of mind, of fresh insights, of deepening understanding, and of growing knowledge.

Emanation (Atzilut) is a holistic world in which divine light is revealed in transcendent realms.

The highest level is when we draw divine light down into our everyday world creating delicious deserts from the 5^th year fruit.

A traveler on horseback arrived in the days between high holidays. He joined morning services in a Hasidic synagogue, the only one in town.

This skeptic heard the Hasidim telling of their rebbe's ascent to heaven to plead the case of humanity in a face-to-face encounter with God.

When he saw the rebbe disappear, he ran out of the synagogue and discreetly trailed him as he swiftly walked home.

He saw him emerge from his home in workman's clothes with an ax in his belt and a rope draped over his shoulder.

The rebbe chopped down a small tree, cut off its branches and tied them in a bundle that he brought into a shack at edge of the village.

Peering in a window, the skeptic saw a frail old woman. The rebbe put wood in her stove, cooked up a pot of stew and scrubbed the floor.

He spied the rebbe walk back home, change into his black brocade coat with a white woolen tallit, and slip back into the synagogue.

When he heard the Hasidim talking ecstatically about their rebbe's return from heaven, the skeptic added, "If not higher than that!"

Pesach:Hag HaMatzot (Passover:Season of Our Freedom) חג המצות זמן חרותנו

2011-04-28T16:11:00.017+03:00

Freedom in Crete

Keep the Holiday of Matzot. Eat matzot for seven days. (Exodus 23:15)

את חג המצות תשמור שבעת ימים תאכל מצות

We celebrated the Season of Our Freedom participating in reestablishing a Jewish community in Crete where Jews lived for 2 millennia.

In 1944, the Nazis herded the Jews of this Greek island into a ship that was torpedoed. All 300 Cretan Jews drowned en route to Auschwitz.

For Pesach 2011/5771, 300 Jews flew into Crete from 3 continents to create a Jewish community in a holiday village overlooking Daios Cove.

The entire village was rendered kosher for Passover. Circular hand-made matzot and rectangular machine-made matzot were served at meals.

Circular matzot symbolize idolatry. Since words in the torah are written without vowels, calf (EGeL) can also be read as circle (EGuL).

The idolatrous transgression of the Israelites was their worship of Ra, the sun God represented in Egyptian art as a golden circle.

In a town north of Daios Cove, we watched an artist painting reproductions of Greek pagan images on urns.

Hanukah, our other holiday of freedom, celebrates victory against forced imposition of Greek gods on the Jews in the Land of Israel.

Rectangular matzot symbolize slavery. The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites in the malben, meaning both brickyard and rectangle.

Mitzrayim, the biblical name of Egypt, means narrowness. The exodus into the wide expanses of the Sinai desert expanded consciousness.

The Daios Cove Jewish community recited Psalm 118 every day: From narrow straits I called out to God. God answered me with expansiveness.

As we break matzot to eat them, we break out of the box and circle, both closed forms, breaking away from narrowness of thought.

Jewish consciousness is shaped by spiral forms, from torah scroll to DNA to tzitzit fringes to ram's horn shofar to spiral hallah bread.

Jews are called Am HaSePheR (People of the Torah Scroll). The SPR root found its way into the words SPiRal, SPiRitual and inSPiRation.

Some Jews grow spiral ear locks. Hasidic singer Mordechai Ben David reclines in creative freedom as his peyot blow in the Cretan wind.

Aharay (After) אחרי

2011-04-12T07:57:00.014+03:00

Kabbalah of Aharon's Baseball Cap

God said to Moses: Speak to your brother Aharon that he shall don a tunic and pants on his body of special cloth, gird himself with a cloth belt and wear a special cloth cap. (Leviticus 16:2, 4)

כתנת בד קדש ילבש ומכנסי בד יהיו על בשרו ובאבנט בד יחגר ובמצנפת בד יצנף

Aharon wore a special uniform to carry out his priestly role in the sanctuary. Our son Aharon/Ari wore a Petah Tikva Pioneers uniform.

We named our southpaw son Aharon when he was born, but call him Ari. He was pitcher and coach in the Israel Baseball League.

Mel photographed Ari and his Petah Tikva Pioneers teammates wearing red tunics, belts and baseball caps with white pants.

Modi'in Miracle pitcher, 6' 7" Maximo Nelson, stands for singing Hatikvah with a batboy wearing a uniform with flowing tzitzit fringes.

Hillel declared: Be of the disciples of Aharon, loving peace and pursuing peace. (Avot 15:2)

As baseball coach, our son Aharon used his human relations skills to pursue peace between players who came to Israel from many lands.

As coach, Ari (a lion) used his strength to forge a unified team while realizing his dream of being a professional baseball player.

10 players on the field created a kabbalistic dance of 10 sephirot in Mel's mind as he watched baseball being played in the Holy Land.

He saw Keter, Hokhmah and Binah playing the outfield, Hesed, Gevurah, Netzah, and Hod playing the infield, and Malkhut as catcher.

Ari as Tiferet on the mound pitched his fastball past the batter Yesod of the opposing team into the mitt of Malkhut.

When Yesod hit the next pitch over the fence and out of the field, the crowd cried out "Ayn Sof! Ayn Sof!" (Infinity! Infinity!)

Metzorah (Slanderer) מצרע

2011-04-06T20:23:00.009+03:00

Goldstone Lost in the Amazon

He shall take the live bird together with cedar wood, crimson wool and hyssop…. And he shall set the live bird free upon the open fields. (Leviticus 14:6, 7)
את הצפר החיה יקח אתה ואת עץ הארז ואת שני התולעת ואת האזב.... ושלח את הצפר החיה על פני השדה

Rav Kook reads Metzorah as Motzi Shem Ra (to create a bad name for someone), a slanderer who defames others by his speech (lashon hara).

The slanderer not only afflicts his own body, clothes and house through lashon hara, but he threatens society through breakdown of trust.

Therefore, he is banished from his community to live in isolation and seclusion in the wild among animals and plants that speak no evil.

Metzorah follows Shemini (kosher animals) to teach that what comes out of our mouths can be far more detrimental than what goes in. (Rabbi Yisrael Salanter)

Rabbi S. R. Hirsch explains that the mighty cedar and hyssop weed with sheep wool and crimson bug dye symbolize all plant and animal life.

When banishment therapy has succeeded, cedar and hyssop are bound with a red woolen thread to symbolize rising above amoral nature.

A bird flying free represents the potential to tweet truthful words that confirm the metzorah's rehabilitation from crowing hateful lies.

Our grandson Or Alexenberg photographed migrating birds flying up from Lake Yeroham, a short bike ride from his Negev home.

This week, Or completed his service in Israel Defense Forces as Metzorah Goldstone acknowledged his malicious slander against the IDF.

Miriam was born and lived until she was 9 in Suriname at the northern edge of the Amazon jungle, 250 times the size of Israel.

The biodiversity of the Amazon jungle is unmatched. It is home to far more species of flora and fauna than anyplace else on Planet Earth.

The Toucan, the greatest big-mouth bird, lives there.

Tazria (Conceives) תזריע

2011-03-31T17:56:00.011+02:00

Don't Blame Bugs

When a woman conceives and gives birth (Leviticus 12:2)
אשה כי תזריע וילדה

Rav Simlai said: "Just as the creation of human beings follows that of all of the animals, so Torah laws pertaining to humans follow those of animals." (Rashi on Leviticus 12:2)

In last week's portion, we learned about all kinds of animals, permissible and forbidden. Tazria begins with laws about human behavior.

Humans following after animals remind us when we become too proud that even the gnats preceded us in both creation and legislation.

Unlike gnats, cockroaches and sowbugs that can do no wrong, human beings have free will to choose between right and wrong.

Don't blame bugs for bugging up the works. They're innocent. Like computer bugs, people mess up their lives by their inner failings.

Rav Simlai sees the two faces of humanity (Adam in Hebrew). Adam is formed from the dust of the earth (Adamah). He is lower than bugs.

On the other hand, Adam is created in the divine image to be God's partner in the ongoing process of creation (Adameh - resembling God).

Rabbi J. B. Soloveitchik writes in Halakhic Man: If a man wishes to attain the rank of holiness, he must be a creator of worlds. If a man never creates, never brings into being anything new, anything original, then he cannot be holy unto his God.

A few months ago, we saw artist Eva Avidar (Mel's colleague at Emuna College) studying cockroaches under a magnifying glass in her studio.

This week, we marveled at her creation of a ceramic cockroach, the highlight of the Biennale of Israeli Ceramics at the Eretz Israel Museum.

The roach, helpless on its back, light pulsating from its eyes, reminded us of the man who turns into a cockroach in Kafka's Metamorphosis.

For Mel's 60^th birthday, Miriam made him a large ceramic sowbug. The ecology of sowbugs was the subject of Mel's research as a biologist.

Shemini (Eighth) שמיני

2011-03-27T07:55:00.011+02:00

Mischievous Angels

God spoke to Moses and to Aaron, telling them to speak to the Israelites, saying: These are the creatures that you may eat from among all the animals that are upon the earth. (Leviticus 11:1)

Living in Brooklyn, it seemed that mischievous angels had planted kosher shops in our neighborhood uprooted from Jerusalem and Bnai Brak.

Mel made paintings of food shops reflecting a misplaced reality and digitized angels ascended from fragmented images of other shops.

Angel and food are written with the same four Hebrew letters to teach us that angels are spiritual messages arising from everyday life. מאלך מאכל

Jews survived centuries displaced from their homeland by creating discrete communities of kosher food eaters.

Back home, we photographed a meat restaurant in Bnai Brak, an ice cream shop in Jerusalem, and our favorite pizzeria in Petah Tikva.

This torah portion provides a lengthy list that separates mammals, birds, fish and insects that Jews can eat from those they cannot eat.

Through discerning what is kosher every time we eat, we develop skills for distinguishing what can add holiness to all our life’s choices.

Restrictions on eating meat are designed to keep alive a sense of reverence for life until a time when a vegetarian diet will prevail.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and a calf, a young lion and a lamb will walk together, and a little child shall lead them. A cow and bear will graze and their young ones will lie down together; and a lion will eat hay like cattle. (Isaiah 11:6-7)

We end each week with the havdalah (meaning 'separation') ceremony honoring the divine act of making distinctions:

"Between sacred and profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and other nations, between the seventh day and six days of work."

Tzav/Zakhor/Purim (Command/Remember/Lots) צו/זכור/פורים

2011-03-20T09:16:00.010+02:00

Power-Ranger/Spiderman/Batman Defeat Haman/Hitler/Hamas

He shall remove his garments and don other garments. (Leviticus 6: 4) The Hebrew word PURIM is hidden in this passage.

ופשט את בגדיו ולבש בגדים אחרים

Remember what Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt. How, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the way, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety from all your enemies around you, in the Land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.
Do not forget! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

On the Shabbat before the holiday of Purim, we are charged not to forget Amalek's merciless murder of Jews solely because they are Jews.

Amalek arises in every generation from evil Haman in ancient Iran to Ahmadinejad in today's Iran who aims to wipe Israel off the map.

In the Scroll of Esther read on Purim, the incarnation of Amalek is Haman who convinces the King to destroy all the Jews in his kingdom.

That story had a happy ending. Mordecai dons sackcloth to mourn the edict to murder his people and ends up wearing the king's robes.

This week, we could not forget! We were witness to two modern day Amaleks' attempts to annihilate the Jewish people that will also fail.

We went to the cemetery in Petah Tikva to remember Miriam's mother Anna Benjamin on the 2nd anniversary of her passing at 102.

There are no tombstones to mark her parents' graves. They were brutally murdered in Auschwitz by Hitler who met the same fate as Haman.

On an Israel Defense Forces mission to Auschwitz, IDF officer Moshe Peretz, her great-great-grandson's father, said kaddish for her parents.

Anna Benjamin enjoyed her many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren thriving in the Jewish State.

Our son Moshe Yehuda was at the funeral of the Fogel family massacred in the historic heartland of the Jewish People by Arab Amaleks.

They were murdered by Amaleks who change their bloodied clothes to tailored suits and silk ties, speaking Arabic hate and English peace.

The duplicitous Palestinian Authority seeks to unite with Hamas in support of its educational curricula that command the murder of Jews.

Hamas' charter reads: "Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims."

Children should be taught: "I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill."

Present day Amaleks will meet the same fate as all who have attempted to destroy us since we were attacked in the desert 3 millennia ago.

We photographed Jewish children celebrating life in Purim costumes in our Power-Ranger great-grandson Yehiel Eliad Peretz's kindergarten.

Vayikra (And He Called) ויקרא

2011-03-13T08:00:00.021+02:00

One 304,805-letter Word

beforetheeyesofallthehouseofisraelinalltheirtravelsandgodcalledtomosesspeakingtohimfromthetentofthemeetinghesaidspeaktothechildrenofisrael

בולעיניכלביתישראלבכלמסעיהםויקראאלמשהוידבריהוהאליומאהלמועדלאמורדבראלבניישראל

The first word of Leviticus, Vayikra, begins with the letter vav meaning 'and' and ends with an unusually small letter alef.

Vav (and) joins the last sentence of Shemot-Exodus to the first of Vayikra-Leviticus in a continuous flow like a torah scroll unwinding.

The medium is an integral part of the message. Public reading of the torah in synagogue must be from a spiraling scroll, not from a book.

Small alef relates to a primeval time when the entire torah was written as one continuous word like the on-going flow of everyday life.

When the single 304,805-letter word was divided into 79,847 words, double letters written as one were separated.

The small alef reminds us of its separation from the alef following it in the word written alef lamed אאל, 'to' as in 'God called to Moses.'

Scribes write Hebrew letters below a line. The only letter that breaks through the line rising above it is the lamed, meaning 'to learn'.

Small alef symbolizes the humility of a learner open to growing. Lamed invites the learner to break out of the box soaring to new heights.

When the torah scroll is rewound annually, lamed, the last letter of the torah, connects to beit, the first letter, to spell lev.

Lev means 'heart.' The heart of the torah is where the end of the torah flows into its beginning as an on-going stream of life.

SundayTrucks: We see from our bedroom window trucks making their deliveries to the corner grocery store early in the morning.

MondayAmericanPizza: Mel had pizza for lunch in Jerusalem where he teaches.

TuesdayBook: Miriam holds the first copy of Mel's new book that explores narrative blogart as being both postdigital and Jewish.

WednesdayRain: We were happy to wake up to the sound of rain in our parched land. We photographed the puddle from our bedroom window.

ThursdayShopping: We shopped for Shabbat at Avi's Kew Gardens Hills Fruit & Vegetable store across the street from out Petah Tikva home.

FridayBureakaBreakfast: We fed Moshe's mice staying with us until his wife Inbal (our granddaughter) and he could move into their new home.

Pekudei (Reckonings) פקודי

2011-03-06T07:50:00.007+02:00

Zionist Miracle

Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur of the tribe of Judah did all that God commanded Moses. With him was Oholiav ben Ahisamakh of the tribe of Dan, a carver, weaver, and embroiderer using sky-blue, purple and crimson wool, and fine linen. (Exodus 38:22, 23)

ובצלאל בן אורי בן חור למטה יהודה עשה את כל אשר צוה יהוה את משה ואתו אהליאב בן אחיסמך למטה דן חרש וחשב ורקם בתכלת ובארגמן ובתולעת חשני ובשש

The book of Exodus began with the miracle of freeing the Israelites from slavery and draws to an end with the completion of the Tabernacle.

The Tabernacle was a major collaborative art project under the aesthetic direction of 2 master artists from the tribes of Judah and Dan.

This great biblical miracle pales in comparison to the Zionist miracle in our time that we too often fail to see.

The Exodus story tells of liberating one nation of thousands from enslavement in the one country of Egypt after hundreds of years of exile.

We are living the liberation of millions of Jews from scores of countries after thousands of years of exile, bringing them home to Israel.

Being an integral part of this Zionist miracle, unprecedented in world history, offers enthralling creative opportunities for an artist.

Mel has the amazing privilege as Head of Emunah College School of the Arts in Jerusalem to teach descendants of both Bezalel and Oholiav.

Creative young women from the tribes of Judah and Dan work together there in degree programs in art, graphic design and theater.

His students from the tribe of Dan were flown out of Ethiopia to join their brethren from the tribe of Judah as fellow artists.

In the 16^th century, David Zimra, Chief Rabbi of Egypt, declared that "those who come from Ethiopia are without a doubt the tribe of Dan."

In 1973, Ovadia Yosef, Israel's Chief Rabbi, confirmed the Jewish identity of the Beta Israel Ethiopian community as being the tribe of Dan.

Vayakhel (Assembled) ויקהל

2011-02-27T21:12:00.008+02:00

Non-Art Day

Moses assembled the entire Israelite community and said to them: "These are the things that God commanded you to do. Do all your creative work in six days, but the seventh day shall be kept holy as a Sabbath, a day of complete rest for God." (Exodus 35:1, 2)

ויקהל משה את כל עדת בני ישראל ויאמר אלהם אלה הדברים אשר צוה יהוה לעשת אתם ששת ימים תעשה מלאכה וביום השביעי יהיה לכם קדש שבת שבתון ליהוה

As we celebrated the birth of our grandson Avraham Matityahu, Miriam pointed out that Vayakhel will be his bar mitzvah portion in 13 years.

The baby was named for Mel's father and uncle at the brit, the ancient ritual of initiation into the Jewish people.

Reading Vayakhel to an assembled Jewish community from a hand-written torah scroll will be his rite of passage into manhood.

Unlike reading in western culture, a private silent act of the eyes, reading in Jewish life is a public act of chanting with full voice.

We photographed our new grandson the day he was born, his sister Elianne welcoming him home on the 3^rd day, and the brit on the 8^th day.

After holding the baby, Elianne took candlesticks, put a doily on her head, covered her eyes and sang the blessing over Sabbath candles.

If it wasn't weekday play but the real thing, lighting the candles would usher in a Non-Art Day in which we cease from all creative work.

While actively building the Tabernacle as a dwelling place for God, Moses said to the assembled community: "Stop on day 7!"

He taught that creating holy architecture in time takes precedence over building holy architecture in space.

The indestructible time architecture of Shabbat has kept the Jewish people alive throughout millennia of wandering in troubled exile.

On day 7, we honor the divine artist. On day 8, we partner with God in continuing the process of creation.

On day 7, we leave the natural world the way we got it. The brit on day 8 symbolizes the human act of intervening in nature.

The assembled community celebrating the brit said to the parents, our son Moshe and his wife Carmit:

"May you merit raising him to read the torah on his being bar mitzvah, to be wed under the hupa, and to enjoy a life of good deeds."

שתזכו לגדלו לתורה לחופה ולמעשים טובים

Ki Tisa (When you take) כי תשה

2011-02-20T17:32:00.006+02:00

Legacy Thrones

See, I have selected Betzalel son of Uri son of Hur of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with divine spirit, with wisdom, understanding and knowledge, and with talent for all type of craftsmanship. (Exodus 31:2, 3)

ראה קראתי בשם בצלאל בן אורי בן הור למטה יהודה ואמלא אתו רוח אלהים בחכמה ובתבונה ובדעת ובכל מלאכה

I have assigned to him Oholiav son of Ahisamakh of the tribe of Dan, and I have endowed the hearts of every naturally talented person with wisdom. (Exodus 31:6)

ואני הנה נתתי אתו את אהליאב בן אחיסמך למטה דן ובלב כל חכם לב נתתי חכמה

The names of Bezalel and Oholiav, the Tabernacle artists, give us insight into the contemporary transition from modern to postmodern art.

Bezalel ben Uri ben Hur literally means “In the Divine Shadow son of Fiery Light son of Freedom."

It symbolizes the modern sensibility of relating art to individual passion and free expression.

Oholiav ben Akhisamach means “My Tent of Reliance on Father, Son, and My Brother."

It symbolizes the postmodern collaborative enterprise of constructing an intergenerational structure shared by a community.

Bezalel’s name represents the psychology of the creative artist and Oholiav’s name describes the sociology of collective creativity.

Bezalel and Oholiav were not only endowed with artistic talent, but also with talent to teach others to be artistic collaborators. (Exodus 30:34)

We created the Legacy Thrones project as an exemplary model of intergenerational collaboration and postmodern art education.

Elders representing ethnic communities of Miami and our art students collaborated with us in creating three monumental works of public art.

Talented young people worked with elders from the Jewish, Hispanic and African-American communities to create Legacy Thrones.

Through aesthetic dialogue, valued traditions were transformed into artistic statements of enduring significance.

Together, young and old hands shaped wet clay into colorful ceramic relief elements collaged onto three towering thrones constructed from steel and concrete.

Facing Biscayne Bay, each twenty-foot high, two-ton throne visually conveys the stories of the three largest ethnic communities of Miami.

For images and texts describing all three thrones and the process of creating them, click on artworks and papers at www.melalexenberg.com.

Our papers about the Thrones were published in Art Education and the book Community Connections: Intergenerational Links in Art Education.

Tetzaveh (Command) תצוה

2011-02-15T19:28:00.007+02:00

Growing Gold

Make an altar to burn incense of acacia wood…. Cover it with a layer of pure gold. (Exodus 30:1, 3)

Make the carrying poles of acacia wood and cover them with gold. (Exodus 30:5)

Make an ark of acacia wood…. Cover it with a layer of pure gold on the inside and outside. (Exodus 25:10, 11)

Make two carrying poles of acacia wood and cover them with a layer of gold. (Exodus 25:13)

Our son Ron changed hats from last week as the rabbi at his sister's wedding to this week as a biologist exploring the desert with us.

Ron teaches about interrelationships between Torah and science at the Yeshiva High School for Environmental Studies in the Negev.

We drove with our son Ari and his wife Julie into the desert mountains where Ron lives to search for acacia trees.

Hiking in the desert, we suddenly caught sight of a single acacia tree isolated in the valley as we came over the top of hill.

We walked down the rocky hill photographing the tree as we got closer. Miriam sat down to rest under the tree.

Ron explained that the tree is more than a thousand years old from tree ring studies of other trees in the Negev.

As we walked back, we asked why acacia wood was the primary material used to build the ark housing the Ten Commandments and the altar.

Why were such significant objects only coated with gold rather than being made of pure gold?

As a stable element that neither tarnishes nor rusts, gold symbolizes the eternal values of the written Torah.

The acacia tree symbolizes the living, growing, dynamic oral Torah that engages all generations in creative dialogue.

Carrying the ark and altar by their gold coated acacia poles brings fresh meaning to eternal values at all times and in every place.

It [Torah] is a tree of life for those who grasp it …. Its ways are ways of pleasantness and all its paths are peace. (Proverbs 3:18, 17)

Terumah (Contribution) תרומה

2011-02-08T09:31:00.019+02:00

Kabbalah of Love

Make 50 loops on one tapestry and 50 loops on the edge of the second tapestry so that the two sets of loops are parallel (maKBiLot) to one another.
Make 50 golden fasteners to join the tapestries together so that the Tabernacle should be one. (Exodus: 26:5,6)

חמשים ללאת תעשה ביריעה האחת וחמשים ללאת תעשה בקצה היריעה אשר במחברת השנית מקבילת הללאת אשר אל אחתה ועשית חמשים קרסי זהב וחברת את היריעת אשר אל אחתה בקרסים והיה המשכן אחד

The dwelling place created to invite in the divine presence was not covered by one tapestry canopy, but by two that complement each other.

The word maKBiLot in this torah portion is the source of the word KaBaLah, an exploration of parallel creative processes, divine and human.

Each set of 50 loops represents a unique combination of traits that are joined together in a golden union of man and woman.

Kabbalah offers a choreography of the mind dancing in the parts of the mind that appreciate imagery, poetry, and music of the soul.

In kabbalah's schema, 10 sephirot (emanations of divine light) are interconnected by 22 pathways corresponding to the 22 Hebrew letters.

3 male sephirot (wisdom, compassion, success) parallel 3 female sephirot (understanding, strength, majesty).

They are wed to each other through the sephirah of inner beauty (tiferet) that brings intentions, thoughts and emotions into the world of action.

קול ששון, קול שמחה, קול חתן, קול כלה

We celebrated the wedding of our vivacious daughter Iyrit to the spiritually powerful Ohad in the garden of Malca and Dedi Graucher.

As officiating rabbi, our son Ron observed the groom signing the ketubah (wedding contract) that Mel designed and read it to the couple under the hupa (wedding canopy).

Our grandson Or (22) photographed the wedding and our granddaughter Elianne (2) spread rose petals before the bride.

The names Ohad and Iyrit spelled out on the pathways between the sephirot trace spirituality flowing down into everyday life.

In a successful marriage, each partner honors the uniqueness of the other while forging a loving union.

We wish all the best for our daughter Iyrit and our new son Ohad (Tony) as they create a beautifully meaningful life together in Israel.

Let there be heard in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and the sound of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride. (from the wedding ceremony)

Mishpatim (Ordinances) משפטים

2011-01-30T06:38:00.008+02:00

Tune Out, Turn Off, Unplug

Six days shall you accomplish your activities and on the seventh day you shall desist. (Exodus 23:12) The seventh day is Sabbath... you shall not do any creative work. (Exodus 20:10)

As slaves under Egyptian oppression, the Israelites were forced to work incessantly with no breaks. Their time was not their own.

A day of rest was a revolutionary concept in the ancient world with power today to free us from addiction to digital technologies.

The Sabbath was given at Sinai as a gift for all humanity, a gift particularly valuable to everyone in our fast paced postdigital world.

In our home on the Sabbath, computer, TV, radio, mobile phones and landlines remain silent.

On day 7, we don't e-mail, don't tweet on Twitter, don’t write on Facebook walls, don't link on LinkedIn, don't Google, don't blog.

We don't travel the information or asphalt highways. Pollution from information overload and carbon emissions is stopped cold on day 7.

No banks of TVs, bank ATM's, phone sales, wireless access to all Israeli citizens for issuing gas masks, nor coffee shop video totems.

Shabbat is Ecology Day, a day we leave the world the way we got it, a joyous day set aside to take pleasure in divine creation.

Shabbat is also a Non-Art Day on which we stop making all art – postdigtal, digital, and pre-digital.

All activities inappropriate on Shabbat are derived from the 39 craft categories that went into making the Tabernacle.

Shabbat is a divine design to help make us be more human. It offers us a quiet pool of time for enjoying family and friends.

On the eighth day, we can return with renewed energies to being partners of God in continuing creation.

We can enjoy the technological wonders of our era knowing that we are free to tune out, turn off, and unplug on the next Shabbat.

Yitro (Jethro) יתרו

2011-01-23T08:37:00.020+02:00

Contentment with Our Lot

You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that is your neighbor's. (Exodus 20:14)

לא תחמד בית רעך לא תחמד אשת ראך ועבדו ואמתו ושורו וחמרו וכל אשר לרעך

The Torah obligates us to do things and not do others (positive and negative mitzvot), but rarely legislates thought.

The greatest reward is to be so content with one's own lot that even thinking of envying anyone else never enters one's mind.

In the first years of our marriage, Miriam was home with three children while Mel earned a pitifully small monthly salary as a teacher.

Before the days of credit cards, we often found ourselves broke by the fourth week of each month.

We ate leftovers and often bought a bottle of liqueur with our last $2 to celebrate our wonderful life together.

Half century later, we planned this blog posting sitting together in a coffee shop enjoying upside-down coffee and an apple-cheese tart.

We continued our discussion walking in a park enjoying monkeys' antics and elderly women petting and feeding the park's feral cats.

When we returned home, Snowball greeted us sitting beneath Mel's parents' wedding picture and ours.