The sixth portion of Genesis, Vayetze/Went
away, is read from the Torah scroll on this Shabbat (Nov. 21, 2015).
See how my wife Miriam and I linked this Torah portion to
our life with photographs and Torah tweets at http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/genesis-7-art-is-computer-angel.html.
Below is one of the 52 posts of the Torah Tweets blogart
project that we created to celebrate our 52nd year of marriage. During each of
the 52 weeks of our 52nd year, we posted six photographs reflecting our life
together with a text of tweets that relates the weekly Torah reading to our
lives. See all the photographs and tweet
texts can at http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com.
Genesis 7: ART IS A COMPUTER ANGEL
Vayetze/Went away (Genesis 28:10-32:3)
He [Jacob] had a vision in a dream. A ladder was
standing on the ground and its top reached up toward heaven; and behold! Divine
angels were ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)
We enjoyed sitting together in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art print room holding Rembrandt's drawings and etchings of angels in our
hands.
Mel painted on subway posters and screen printed
digitized Rembrandt angels and spiritual messages from underground:
Divine angels ascend and descend. (Genesis 28:12)
"They start by going up and afterwards go down" (Rashi) "Have
you seen angels ascending from the NYC subways? (Alexenberg)
Art is a computer angel.
The biblical term for art (MeLekHeT MakHSheVeT) is feminine. The masculine form is computer angel (MaLakH
MakHSheV).
The biblical words for angel and food are written with
the same four letters to tell us that angels are spiritual messages arising
from everyday life.
We chose an image of an ascending angel to digitize and
send on a circumglobal flight on 4 October 1989, Rembrandt's 320th memorial
day.
We sent it via satellite from the AT&T building in NY
to Amsterdam to Jerusalem to Tokyo to Los Angeles, returning to NY the same
afternoon.
The cyberangel not only circled our planet, it flew into
tomorrow and back into yesterday, arriving in Tokyo on 5 Oct. and LA on 4 Oct.
In Tokyo, the 28 faxed sheets were assembled in Ueno Park
and then rearranged as a ribbon ascending the steps of a Shinto chapel.
As we assembled the cyberangel on its return to NY five
hours after it had left, TV news sent it into ten million American homes.
The AP story of our angel flight appeared in 60
newspapers each with a different headline.
AT&T featured it in its Annual Report.
For the full story and more images, see “artworks” at http://www.melalexenberg.com.
In addition to ‘Art is a Computer Angel’ above, below are
two other sections in my new book Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog
of Your Life http://photographgod.com
that explore Jacob’s dream and his discovery that God (named ‘The Place’ - Hamakom)
is everyplace.
JACOB’S LADDER
“He had a vision in a dream. A ladder was standing on
the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as Divine angels were going up
and down on it.” (Genesis 28:12)
PaRDeS is an acronym for four levels for looking
beyond the Torah text. P’shat is
the simple, literal meaning of the biblical words. Remez is a hint of
innate significance. Drash is a homiletic interpretation. And Sod is a mystical, inspirational
meaning.
That a ladder is a ladder is P’shat.
That the ladder was spiral, like a spiral staircase, is
the Remez. We arrive at the
spiral shape of the ladder by noticing that the numerical value of the Hebrew
words for “ladder” and for “spiral” are both 130. Creative play using numerical
equivalents of Hebrew letters, a system called gematriah, can lead to
fresh insights.
A more contemporary Remez links Jacob’s ladder to the DNA
spiral ladder with rungs on which codes for all forms of life are written with
four words: A-T, T-A, C-G, G-C. The SPR
root of SPiRal is found in many ancient and modern languages. The hand-written scroll of the Five Books of
Moses is called SePheR Torah. SPR
appears in SPiRitual and inSPiRation, two words most
significant in my book.
That the ladder was a metaphor for Mount Sinai reaching
up towards heaven from the ground below is Drash. Jacob’s dream was a prophetic vision of
angels ascending the mountain to bring the Torah down to earth. The numerical
value of “Sinai” is also 130.
The deepest significance of the ladder as symbolized in
Sod is offered in the Zohar, the major
work of kabbalistic thought. The Zohar
teaches that Jacob’s ladder is Jacob’s body with his head in the clouds
dreaming of what can be while his feet rest on the ground where dreams are
realized. Every human being has the
potential to connect heaven and earth by making spiritual energy flow through
him into the everyday world.
PHOTOGRAPH ‘THE PLACE’ EVERYPLACE
One of God’s names is Hamakom. In Hebrew, Hamakom literally means The
Place. “Why do we call God by the name Hamakom? Because God is the place of the world” (Bereshit
Raba). These words penned almost two
millennia ago as a commentary on Genesis teaches us that Hamakom,
the Omnipresent, is everyplace. Hamakom is the spacial name for the
endless God.
The biblical narrative describes Jacob coming upon a
nameless place on his journey from his parent’s home to a distant place that he
has never seen. It was at that place
where he stopped to sleep that he had the dream of a ladder linking heaven and
earth.
And Jacob left Beersheba and headed toward Haran. He came upon the place and
spent the night there because the sun had set; and he took from the stones of
the place which he arranged around his head and lay down in that place
(Genesis 28:10-11).
It was in this rocky no-man’s-land that Jacob encountered
Hamakom. If God is in
everyplace, how could Jacob have stumbled upon Hamakom in one particular
place? Jacob came upon a new insight
rather than finding a new geographical place.
He came to realize that in the finite makom, the place where he
happened to stop for the night is where he encountered the infinite Hamakom. He began to see that God was present wherever
he stopped on his life’s journey. Jacob
stumbled upon the understanding that wherever he found himself was the right
place at the right time. When he awoke
from his sleep, he said “Surely God is present in this place and I did not
know it…. How awesome is this place” (Genesis 28:17-18). Jacob’s insight teaches us how awe-inspiring
it is to discover God’s presence everyplace we happen to find ourselves.
Jewish tradition refers to God as The Place to signify
that God is the address of all existence.
God is called Hamakom in the Talmud, the central text of
Judaism’s oral tradition. We read, “Hamakom will provide you with all
that you are lacking.” When consoling a mourner, we say “May Hamakom
comfort you.” The 613 obligations delineated in the Torah are divided into
those between person and person and between person and Hamakom. On the eve of Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest
day of the year, the congregation gathers in the synagogue. The Ark is opened
and two people take from it two Torah scrolls and stand on each side of the
cantor. The three of them begin the
evening service chanting the words: “With the acknowledgement of Hamakom
and the acknowledgement of the congregation.”
Wikipedia translates Hamakom as “The One Who Is Everywhere.”
If you want to photograph God, focus your lens on
Hamakom, The Place, anyplace where you see divine light illuminating
reality. Photograph places in nature
that God creates and places that God creates through human creativity. Let your camera collect the light reflecting
from the reality shaping your life and you will find yourself photographing
God.
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