KABBALAH AS A SPIRITUAL BAR CODE
I hear the word kabbalah spoken frequently in Israel
where I live. I hear it from the
supermarket checkout clerk when she hands me the long paper ribbon saying, “kabbalah
shelkhah,” “your receipt.” The Hebrew word kabbalah means
“receipt.” In addition to its use in
mundane affairs, kabbalah is the hidden wisdom of the deep structure of Jewish
consciousness received from generation to generation.
It is appropriate that both a supermarket computer printout
and the Jewish mystical tradition share the same word. We all stand illiterate before the secret
language of the digital age that only supermarket lasers can read — the bar
code on boxes, bottles, and cans.
Kabbalah is a down-to-earth spiritual tradition that provides a symbolic
language -- a spiritual bar code for exploring how Divine energies are drawn
down into our everyday world.
This Times of Israel blog post is based on my book Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life and its forthcoming sequel Through
a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media.
TEN STAGES IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Kabbalah has created a Tree of Life model to describe ten
stages (sephirot) in the creative process that brings thoughts and
emotions into the world of action, the kingdom of time and space. Thoughts represented by the cognitive
sephirot of Wisdom and Understanding are synthesized as Knowledge. The Bible
uses the same words, Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge, to describe both
human creativity and God’s creation of the universe.
It teaches that the artist is “filled with a Divine
spirit, with Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge and with
artistic talent” (Exodus 31:3). A parallel biblical passage teaches: “God
founded the earth in Wisdom, established heavens in Understanding,
and with Knowledge the depths opened and skies dripped dew” (Proverbs
3:19-20).
It draws six affective sephirot from the biblical verse, “Yours
God are the Compassion, the Strength, the Beauty, the Success,
the Splendor, and the Foundation of everything in heaven and
earth” (Chronicles 1:29). The ninth sephirah of Foundation funnels
all the earlier eight sephirot of the worlds of will, mind and emotions into
the tenth sephirah of Kingdom in the world of action.
Gaining insight into your process of forming something new
can offer you some inkling of God in action creating the world.
ALTERNATIVE VIEWS OF CREATIVE PROCESS
I use kabbalah to analyze my creative process in two artworks
– Subway Angels and Inside/Outside: P’nim/Panim. Subway Angels, part of my “Digitized
Homage to Rembrandt” series, integrates photography with painting, serigraphy
and text. Inside/Outside: P’nim/Panim
is a biofeedback system for creating digital self-generated portraits that I
created at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Both offer alternative views into the
creative process that provide a conceptual model for understanding creative
process.
WISDOM FROM NOTHINGNESS
The first stage in the creative process is the sephirah Crown
(Keter) – the will to create coupled with faith that one can create and anticipation
that the creative process is pleasurable. Without this intention,
self-confidence, and hope for gratification, the creative process has no
beginning.
Crown sets the stage for the sephirah of Wisdom (Hokhmah)
that requires a selfless state, nullification of the ego that opens gateways to
supraconscious and subconscious realms.
When active seeking ceases, when consciously preoccupied with unrelated
activities, when we least expect it, the germ of the creative idea bursts into
our consciousness. This sudden flash of insight is what the kabbalah calls
Wisdom. It is the transition from nothingness to being, from potential to the
first moment of existence. In the Bible’s words, “Wisdom shall be found
in nothingness” (Job 28:12).
SUBWAY ANGELS
The process of creating Subway Angels began in a small
Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn following the reading of the weekly Bible portion
from the handwritten Torah scroll. I
listened to the ancient Hebrew words, translating them into English in my mind. As an artist, listening to the chanting of
the passage describing the attributes of the Bible’s prototypic artist Bezalel
made me feel at home. The passage tells
how Bezalel is filled with Divine spirit, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge,
and talent for all types of craftsmanship to make all manner of MeLekHet
MakHSheVeT (Exodus 35:33).
Usually translated as “artistic work,” MeLekHet MakHSheVeT literally
means “thoughtful craft.”
At that moment, I was living in the Crown sephirah. I subconsciously intended to create artworks; I had faith in my ability to create artworks; and I felt that I would derive pleasure from the process of making art. However, it was the Sabbath and I was removed from my studio, from my classroom where I taught computer graphics, and from my office as head of the art department at Pratt Institute.
Indeed, the definition of Sabbath rest is to refrain from
making MeLekHet MakHSheVeT. The
Sabbath day is biblically defined as the Non-Art day. It is the day in which all work on the Tabernacle
was suspended. To this day, an observant
Jew on the Sabbath avoids doing any of the 39 categories of thoughtful craft
that went into the biblical artists’ creation of the Tabernacle.
My absorption in the rhythm of the chanting of the Torah put
me into a meditative state. I was
passively listening, open to receiving.
The stage was set for the sephirah of Wisdom.
In a flash of insight I realized that as a male artist, I
needed to create computer angels. It
suddenly dawned on me that the biblical term for “art,” MeLekHeT MakHSheVeT,
is feminine. Its masculine form is MaLakH
MakHSheV, literally “computer angel.”
Art is a computer angel when biblical Hebrew meets modern Hebrew in a
postdigital world.
TAKING FORM
Like the sperm that is received by the ovum in the womb, the
unformed germ of an idea from the sephirah of Wisdom enters into the sephirah
of Understanding (Binah). This
union of Wisdom and Understanding is Knowledge, as Adam knew Eve.
As soon as the synagogue service came to an end, I rushed to
explain to my wife that I needed to make computer angels. “You need to make what?” she responded
incredulously. As I transformed my
unformed insight into words to explain my thoughts to her, I entered into the
sephirah of Understanding.
All manner of thoughts entered my mind on ways to create
computer angels. The shapeless idea that ignited the process began to take form
in the sephirah of Understanding.
Together, Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge form the cognitive realm
of thoughts. Knowledge both unites
Wisdom and Understanding and is the gateway to the next six sephirot that form
the affective realm of emotions.
FROM OPENNESS TO SETTING LIMITS
The fourth sephirah of Compassion (Hesed) is openness
to all possibilities. I thought of the
hundreds of artistic options open to me in creating computer angels and I loved
them all. Compassion is counterbalanced
by the fifth sephirah of Strength (Gevurah), the strength to set limits,
to make judgments, to choose between myriad options. It demands that I make hard choices about
which paths to take and which options to abandon. What angel images do I digitize? What media do I use? Should I make paintings, lithographs,
serigraphs, etchings, photographs, videos, multimedia works, or
telecommunication events in which cyberangels fly around the planet via
satellites?
I recalled that a few weeks earlier, my son Ron had sent me
an article on Rabbi Kook’s views that the light in Rembrandt’s paintings was
the hidden light of the first day of Creation.
At the time, Ron was archivist at Beit Harav Kook in Jerusalem, the residence
of the late kabbalist and chief rabbi of the Land of Israel, Abraham Isaac
Kook. It became clear that I needed to
digitize Rembrandt’s angels in his drawings and etchings.
I planned to visit the print room at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art where I could look at original Rembrandt drawings and etchings and
select angel images. I knew he had
created a number of artworks of Jacob’s dream.
“A ladder was standing on the ground, and its top reached up
toward heaven, and angels were going up and down on it” (Genesis 28:12).
Since angels first go up before they go down, they must start
their ascent from the lowest of places.
I thought that in New York City, perhaps angels fly up from the
subways. I would paint on subway posters
and silk-screen print on them digitized Rembrandt angels and spiritual messages
from underground.
BEAUTIFUL BALANCE
As I felt satisfaction with my choice, I departed from the
sephirah of Strength to the next stage, the sixth sephirah of Beauty (Tiferet). This sephirah represents a beautiful balance
between the counterforces of Compassion and Strength. It is the feeling of harmony between all my
possible options and the choices I had made.
Beauty is the aesthetic core of the creative process in which harmonious
integration of openness and closure is experienced as deeply felt beauty. The closure of having chosen to have
cyberangels fly out of subway placards gave me the feeling that all is going
well.
GRACEFUL SUCCESS
The seventh sephirah of Success (Netzah) is the
feeling of being victorious in the quest for significance. I felt that I had the power to overcome any
obstacles that may stand in the way of realizing my artwork. Netzah can also mean “to conduct” or
“orchestrate” as in the word that begins many of the Psalms. I had the confidence that I could orchestrate
all the aspects of creating a multimedia symphony of computer angels arising
from the bowels of New York City.
The eight sephirah of Splendor (Hod) is the glorious
feeling that the final shaping of the idea is going so smoothly that it seems
as effortless as the splendid movements of a graceful dancer. The sephirah of Success is an active
self-confidence in contrast with the sephirah of Splendor which is a passive
confidence born of a trust in Divine providence that “all will be good.” It is the power to advance smoothly with the
determination and perseverance born of deep inner commitment. It is the wonderful feeling that all is going
as it should.
CREATIVE INTEGRATION
The ninth sephirah of Foundation (Yesod) is the
sensuous bonding of Success and Splendor in a union that leads to the birth of
the fully formed idea. It funnels the
integrated forces of intention, thought, and emotions of the previous eight
sephirot into the world of physical action.
In Chronicles 1:29, this sephirah is called All or Everything (kol). It channels everything that was playing out
in my mind into the craft of making the artwork. It transports my private mental world into a
public environmental arena in which I can create a product to communicate my
ideas to others.
NOBLE REALIZATION
This tenth sephirah of Kingdom (Malkhut) is the noble
realization of my concepts and feelings in the kingdom of time and space. It involves all the practical details that go
into physically making an artwork.
I began the realization of my concepts by going to the
company that places advertising posters in subway cars. They gave me fifty different placards on
which I painted and silk-screened printed angels and spiritual messages. On one of them, I used deep blue acrylic
paint to paint out the copy on an English muffin ad that showed a large photo
of a muffin with a bite taken out of it.
I printed a computer angel in silver ink next to the missing piece of the
muffin and printed a new text in gold ink: “The biblical words for angel and
food are written with the same four Hebrew letters to tell us that angels are
spiritual messages arising from everyday life.”
NEW BEGINNINGS
Exhibiting my Subway Angels series was a culminating
activity that gave me the opportunity to stand back and look at what I had
done. This activity is parallel to the
Divine act on the seventh day when God looked at the completed Creation and saw
that it was good. My sense of
satisfaction, however, began to turn into a feeling of postpartum
emptiness. I had given over my creations
to the world and they were no longer mine to possess.
The tenth sephirah of Kingdom, the realm of physical reality
was being transformed into the first sephirah of Crown, returning to
nothingness permeated by an undefined longing to create anew. The process had come full circle. The sephirot of Kingdom and Crown, the end
and the beginning, merge into a single sephirah as the creative process is
renewed.
CREATING INTERACTIVE SELF-PORTRAITS
I repeat the process of my creating an artwork to help you
use the kabbalistic model to become aware of your creative process as you
photograph God and creating a Bible blog your life. Here I describe how I created Inside/Outside:P’nim/Panim,
a responsive artwork through which internal mind/body processes and one’s
facial countenance engage in dialogue.
Participants in Inside/Outside: P’nim/Panim create a live
feedback loop as they photograph themselves.
INTENTION TO INSIGHT
My process once again began in synagogue on the Sabbath day.
I was absorbed in the rhythm of the chanting of words from the Torah scroll
following them with my eyes. I was far removed from my studio/laboratory at MIT
when I suddenly realized that the Hebrew words for face panim and for
inside p’nim are written with the same Hebrew letters. This flash of
awareness that outside and inside are linguistically one is the sudden
transition from Crown to Wisdom, from intention to insight.
When I told my son what had just dawned on me, my mind left
the sephirah of Wisdom for the sephirah of Understanding. The linguistic
insight that ignited the process began to take form as an artwork in
Understanding. I sensed that I needed to
create portraits in which dialogue between the outside face and inside feelings
become integrated in a single artwork.
HARMONIOUS INTEGRATION OF OPENNESS AND CLOSURE
The first three sephirot symbolize the artist’s intention to
create and the cognitive dyad of Wisdom-Understanding in which a flash of
insight begins to crystallize into a viable idea.
The fourth sephirah, Compassion, symbolizes largess, the
stage in the creative process that is open to all possibilities, myriad
attractive options that I would love to do. I thought of a multitude of
artistic options opened to me for creating artworks that reveal interplay
between inner consciousness and outer face.
Compassion is counterbalanced by the fifth sephirah of
Strength, restraint, the power to set limits, to make judgments, to have the
discipline to choose between myriad options. It demands that I make hard
choices about which paths to take and which options to abandon. As an MIT research fellow with access to
electronic technologies, my mind gravitated to creating digital self-generated
portraits in which internal mind/body processes and one’s facial countenance
engage in dialogue through a biofeedback interface.
The balance between the affective dyad Compassion-Strength is
the sephirah of Beauty. As I felt
satisfaction with my choice, I departed from the sephirah of Strength to the
next stage, the sixth sephirah, Beauty, the aesthetic core of the creative
process in which harmonious integration of openness and closure elicits an
exquisite feeling.
ORCHESTRATING DRY PIXELS AND WET BIOMOLECULES
The seventh sephirah, Success, is the feeling of being
victorious in the quest for significance. I felt that I had the power to
overcome any obstacles that may stand in the way of realizing my artwork. I had
the confidence that I could orchestrate all the aspects of creating a moist
media artwork that would forge a vital dialogue between dry pixels and wet
biomolecules, between digital imagery and human consciousness. The eighth
sephirah, Splendor, is the splendid feeling that the final shaping of the idea
is going so smoothly that it seems as effortless as the graceful movements of a
skilled dancer.
CREATING A BIOFEEDBACK LOOP
The ninth sephirah, Foundation, is the sensuous bonding of
Success and Gracefulness in a union that leads to the birth of the fully formed
idea. It funnels the integrated flow of intention, thought, and emotion of the
previous eight sephirot into the world of physical action, into the tenth
sephirah of Kingdom, the noble realization of my concepts and feelings in the
kingdom of time and space. It is my making the artwork.
INSIDE/OUTSIDE: P’NIM/PANIM
I constructed a console in which a participant seated in
front of a monitor places her finger in a plethysmograph, a device that
measures internal body states by monitoring blood flow, while under the gaze of
a video camera. Digitized information
about her internal mind/body processes triggers changes in the image of herself
that she sees on the monitor. She sees her face changing color, stretching,
elongating, extending, rotating, or replicating in response to her feelings
about seeing herself changing. My artwork,
Inside/Outside: P’nim/Panim, created a flowing digital feedback loop in
which mind/body state p’nim effects changes in one’s face panim,
and panim, in turn, effects changes in p’nim. It creates living self-generated,
interactive, digital portraits in the Kingdom of space and time.
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