Cyberangels Go Up from the Land of Israel and Go Down Throughout the World

“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)  The preeminent biblical commentator Rashi teaches that the angels in Jacob's dream go up from the Land of Israel and come down throughout the world.                                                              

As a global tribute to Rembrandt on his 350th yartzheit (he died on 4 October 1669, 9 Tishrei 5430, that falls in 5430 on Yom Kippur), I launched cyberangels from the matzah bakery in Kfar Chabad in Israel to the 770 headquarters of Chabad in New York and on to many of the countries in which there are Chabad Houses.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, was enthusiastic about my bringing Jewish thought into the world's mainstream by collaborating with AT&T in sending a cyberangel on a circumglobal flight as a digitized homage to Rembrandt on his 320th yarzheit.  

The photo below of me is from the 1989 Annual Report of AT&T sent to the 3,000 AT&T shareholders.  My event was watched by ten million people in TV broadcasts on all the major networks. See Rembrandt Inspired Cyberangels Circle the Globe via AT&T Satellites

At the Rebbe's prompting when I was head of the art department at Pratt Institute and research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, I had a one-man show of my computer generated artworks at the Chassidic Art Institute on Kingston Avenue. At the same time, my exhibition LightsOROT: Spiritual Dimensions of the Electronic Age that I created at MIT filled the Yeshiva University Museum. The exhibition catalog features my dialogue with Rabbi Norman Lamm, president of YU, "Light, Vision and Art in Judaism." The ARTnews critic wrote "Rarely is an exhibition as visually engaging and intellectually challenging. 
    
Below is the catalog for exhibition of Mel Alexenberg showing serigraph of "Ascent of Computer Angels from the Land of Israel" in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

The same image for the smartphone generation appears on the cover of my 2019 book Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media. Throughout this book and The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age are thoughts of the Rebbe.

The Rebbe teaches that the sweeping technological changes we are experiencing today were predicted some two thousand years ago in the Zohar, the classic text of kabbalah. The Zohar describes how the outburst in scientific knowledge and technological advancement would be paralleled by an increase in sublime wisdom and spirituality. Integrating the wisdom of the mind and the wisdom of the soul can begin to usher true unity into the world. 

He writes: "The Divine purpose of the present information revolution, which gives an individual unprecedented power and opportunity, is to allow us to share knowledge – spiritual knowledge – with each other, empowering and unifying individuals everywhere. We need to use today’s interactive technology not just for business or leisure but to interlink as people – to create a welcome environment for the interaction of our souls, our hearts, our visions."

My two academic books published by Intellect Books/University of Chicago Press are: The Future of Art in a Postdigital Age: From Hellenistic to Hebraic Consciousness (2011) and Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at Intersection of Art, Science, Technology and Culture (2008). When I was head of Emunah College School of the Arts in Jerusalem, I wrote in Hebrew the book אמנות דיאלוגית בעולם דיגיטלי Dialogic Art in a Digital World: On Judaism and Contemporary Art (2008).