Lively Jewish Arts and CultureThe Creative in the Universe/in Ourselves
The El Adon is an amazing prayer. Through it we not only see how God is actively a part of creation but we also see that creation has a power, strength, wonder, and beauty that is both connected to God and independent of God.
This shows that the creative force is extremely dynamic. It lives through us and through the universe. It motivates us and enthralls us. It takes us to heights of joy and to the depths of despair. It can be a force for good and evil. It has the ability to deepen our relationship to the world, to the universe, to each other, and to ourselves.
Creativity and the arts are inherent in the El Adon prayer. It starts out by declaring that God is the ruler of every element of Creation. It then goes on to declare that God’s attributes of Greatness, Goodness, Daat (Learning), Binah (Knowledge) surround Hodo (the Divine Paradigm).
Why juxtapose Creation with the attributes of God? This is critical in understanding the arts. Ma’asim B’reishit – the Acts of The Creation were and are the entire universe. They were the universe when it was formed out of nothing and they continue to be the universe, in fact they hold the universe together, and they bring God’s Divine Attributes to the universe/world.
Then the El Adon goes into an act of creative artistry itself by painting/singing through words (and melody since we sing this prayer) a picture/song of the going up to the heavenly throne by chariot and seeing the celestial beings/holy-lights. This picture is depicted with Beauty-Hadar, Kavod-Glory, Yashar-Dignity, Love and Infinite Love-Chesed and Rachamim.
It goes on in the picture/song to describe this even more. The picture is abundantly filled with Splendid Lights-Tovim M’Orot from God (bara elokeinu), imbued once again with Da’at, Binah, and Heskel – Enlightenment. All of this is very dynamic and passionate with Strength-Koach, and Might-G’vurah (also connected to the Divine Paradigm) and connected/intimately involved with the entire world.
Aesthetic qualities continue to be revealed – Full of Brilliance, Radiating Brightness, this Brightness is throughout the entire universe.
And then there is a shift in the text from the descriptive to a personification of the aesthetic qualities, giving them a life of their own. The qualities themselves have will, consciousness, and their own setting. They actually rejoice in their ascent. They exult in their own Paradigm (B’voam). Yet their connection to the ultimate Creator is not severed. The next line describes them as performing with reverence the will of the Creator. They are now full-fledged beings because they can give Glory and Honor (P'er v’Chavod) to God’s Name, they sing with Joyousness a Song in the Remembrance of God’s Majesty.
Then another shift occurs. The creation of the lights of the sun and the form of the moon are described in a voice that could be the voice of God or could be the voice of the actual aesthetic qualities. There is a tension (or is it a reality?) in the text that both points to a connection to God through the acts of creation and that creation itself exists on its own and creates the Acts of Creation. Is creation part of God or is it independent? Does a harmonizing of the universe and creation and the creative act as a life-force need to occur? Does art exist on its’ own? Is the goodness and the power of the creative force a shaping that must occur through the connection with God?
The El Adon doesn’t end here. It continues with a description of harmonization (wishful thinking?). The Heavenly Hosts offer Praises, Splendor, Grandeur, all coming from the Seraphim, the Ofanim and the Chayyaot HaKodesh – the Celestial Beings. Are they offering them to God or to the Creative Forces?
This beautiful, disturbing poem sends chills down one’s spine. It shows the power of creation and how art and creative forces can go in many directions. They can be forces for good, for connecting the universe -- an example is the sun and the moon and the other planets in their orbits. But can they also have a life of their own? Are they that powerful? The author seems to suggest that, nevertheless stating at the beginning that God is Lord, the Creator of All.
There is a haunting quality of this piece/prayer. It shows beauty, but behind it, it shows what can happen if creative forces and creative acts are independent. This brings up the questions “does disharmony or dissonance mean that things are out of balance” or “is dissonance sometimes a state to be desired?” Is tension and conflict necessary in art? Maybe that is also a message in this piece, that the tension behind beauty, the El Adon, is also an inherent aesthetic tension needed for works of art?
Therefore the goal of seeking harmonization cannot happen through blending because each attribute is distinct and specific. It must have distinct elements that work together but also work in opposition to itself and to the universe. The text even uses letters to depict the harmonization of the universe leading to the number seven which is the number of creation. Two luminaries are explicitly mentioned, the Sun-Shemesh and the Moon-L’vanah and then five planets are indicated through the words Shevach, Notnim, Kal Tzvah, Marom. The first letter of each of each of these words stands for five planets, Shvitai-Saturn, Nogah-Venus, Kochav-Mercury, Tzedek-Jupiter, M’Edom-Mars.
El Adon is a Shabbat piece. It isn’t sung on any other holiday. It has a revered place in the liturgy. The mystics of, what is called Chariot Mysticism or Merkavah Mysticism in the 7th Century, which depicted the Holy Descent/Ascent to God, wrote it. Elijah and Ezekiel are two of the figures whose lives and narratives describe Merkavah Mysticism.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
What do the arts really say?
Recently I read an article about an Arab performer who said that arts doesn't change society. He has given up hope that people are really affected by what they see on stage. They just want to be entertained.
This is in sharp contrast to Moti Lerner, the Israeli playwright, who sees art and theatre as a way for the audience to change themselves. Lerner speaks to this when he says, “Theatre people must hold to the illusion that they can save their society by their art, that they can heal it. Yes. It is probably an illusion. We have experienced enough to know it. But let's not forget the power of illusions and the power of vision. Without vision, without illusions, nothing would change. Nothing would heal.”
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Art is a catalyst when people want it to be. Do the masses change themselves when they see a challenging play or read a provocative book? In most cases not. But do people change when they are open to change? Yes.
So what is the role of art in this process? It must be there searching for the ones who want to change. It must be probing and in the margins, as well as mainstream and popular. It must be audacious and political and it must be one-sided or balanced depending on the artist and their vision. The vision is the all important thing becuase that leads to the truth within the artist. Creating art by committee is not art. It is artificial, a product, a consumerist mentality.
What we are lacking today is imagination. It has been taken away by consumerism. Artists are our only hope because they are the ones who value imagination for imagination's sake, art for art's sake, vision for vision's sake. Value the artist and value the imagination, no matter where it leads.
This is in sharp contrast to Moti Lerner, the Israeli playwright, who sees art and theatre as a way for the audience to change themselves. Lerner speaks to this when he says, “Theatre people must hold to the illusion that they can save their society by their art, that they can heal it. Yes. It is probably an illusion. We have experienced enough to know it. But let's not forget the power of illusions and the power of vision. Without vision, without illusions, nothing would change. Nothing would heal.”
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Art is a catalyst when people want it to be. Do the masses change themselves when they see a challenging play or read a provocative book? In most cases not. But do people change when they are open to change? Yes.
So what is the role of art in this process? It must be there searching for the ones who want to change. It must be probing and in the margins, as well as mainstream and popular. It must be audacious and political and it must be one-sided or balanced depending on the artist and their vision. The vision is the all important thing becuase that leads to the truth within the artist. Creating art by committee is not art. It is artificial, a product, a consumerist mentality.
What we are lacking today is imagination. It has been taken away by consumerism. Artists are our only hope because they are the ones who value imagination for imagination's sake, art for art's sake, vision for vision's sake. Value the artist and value the imagination, no matter where it leads.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Lively Jewish Arts and CultureThe History of the Jewish People, Barbie, and the War in Lebanon --- These things have been most on my mind lately. How do they all come together? Well recently I saw the movie "The Tribe: The Unorthodox and Unauthorized History of the Jewish People and Barbie...in About 15 minutes". And I am also wrestling with the horrors of war that we have seen in Lebanon and Israel.
Are we a tribe? Do we live in a tribal world? Is that in fact what I need to learn to accept. And the movie The Tribe is about how Jews are all connected even if we look like Barbie because we're all members of the Tribe (and Barbie is a member too since her creator was Jewish).
I do feel the connection but sometimes it is too intense. Like when the war was going on in Israel and bombs were dropping near my sister and her family and my mother, and the top floor of the hospital where my mother was, in Nahariyah, was taken off. And of course I hate Hezballah for starting it all and for being another Tribe that doesn't accept the state of Israel. So when Tribes don't accept the other this is what happens -- tribalism.
i want to promote the positive aspects of being a Tribe -- ceremony, ritual, shared history, culture, performance, beliefs, myths, stories. I want to have evenings where we celebrate our rich heritage and sing and create new stories based on our shared experiences. I want our families to be connected worldwide and I want to promote the things my Tribe promotes -- a land, a language, a collective narrative, archetypal images, the ethics and laws in the Torah and Talmud with their ongoing oral interpretation, transmission, and transformation.
But when do I allow the other Tribes in? How do they enter? Are they already here? As Stephen Sondheim wrote, "Send in the clowns...don't bother they're here." And is my Tribe a group of clowns, too?
One of the most poignant moments, ever, for me in film was in "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" at the very end. It is when Alec Guinness playing a prisoner of war in Japan and commander of the British unit in the prison camp, is killing his own men who are trying to bomb a Japanese bridge -- that ironically has been built by Alec Guiness and his men while in the prisoner of war camp. Guinness is so enraged that his bridge is going to be bombed, that he starts to kill the members of his Tribe -- the British -- to save the bridge he has been building for the other Tribe -- the Japanese. He forgets which Tribe he belongs to.
Seemingly he succeeds and he is the only one left, he has saved the bridge and the Japanese train is about to go over the bridge. Then he realizes which Tribe he belongs to. He realizes that he has an allegiance to the British and heads toward the explosives to detonate them. He is shot on his way over, by the Japanese Tribe soldiers, and in a beautifully choreographed movement, whirls falls and lands on the explosives. The bridge is destroyed and the Japanese Tribe loses (this round). And the final words of the film are by one of the British men who has been observing all of this from a distance (maybe he wasn't sure of his Tribe). He barrels down the hill surveying the scene of death on all sides and he says, "Madness, madness".
--D
Are we a tribe? Do we live in a tribal world? Is that in fact what I need to learn to accept. And the movie The Tribe is about how Jews are all connected even if we look like Barbie because we're all members of the Tribe (and Barbie is a member too since her creator was Jewish).
I do feel the connection but sometimes it is too intense. Like when the war was going on in Israel and bombs were dropping near my sister and her family and my mother, and the top floor of the hospital where my mother was, in Nahariyah, was taken off. And of course I hate Hezballah for starting it all and for being another Tribe that doesn't accept the state of Israel. So when Tribes don't accept the other this is what happens -- tribalism.
i want to promote the positive aspects of being a Tribe -- ceremony, ritual, shared history, culture, performance, beliefs, myths, stories. I want to have evenings where we celebrate our rich heritage and sing and create new stories based on our shared experiences. I want our families to be connected worldwide and I want to promote the things my Tribe promotes -- a land, a language, a collective narrative, archetypal images, the ethics and laws in the Torah and Talmud with their ongoing oral interpretation, transmission, and transformation.
But when do I allow the other Tribes in? How do they enter? Are they already here? As Stephen Sondheim wrote, "Send in the clowns...don't bother they're here." And is my Tribe a group of clowns, too?
One of the most poignant moments, ever, for me in film was in "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" at the very end. It is when Alec Guinness playing a prisoner of war in Japan and commander of the British unit in the prison camp, is killing his own men who are trying to bomb a Japanese bridge -- that ironically has been built by Alec Guiness and his men while in the prisoner of war camp. Guinness is so enraged that his bridge is going to be bombed, that he starts to kill the members of his Tribe -- the British -- to save the bridge he has been building for the other Tribe -- the Japanese. He forgets which Tribe he belongs to.
Seemingly he succeeds and he is the only one left, he has saved the bridge and the Japanese train is about to go over the bridge. Then he realizes which Tribe he belongs to. He realizes that he has an allegiance to the British and heads toward the explosives to detonate them. He is shot on his way over, by the Japanese Tribe soldiers, and in a beautifully choreographed movement, whirls falls and lands on the explosives. The bridge is destroyed and the Japanese Tribe loses (this round). And the final words of the film are by one of the British men who has been observing all of this from a distance (maybe he wasn't sure of his Tribe). He barrels down the hill surveying the scene of death on all sides and he says, "Madness, madness".
--D
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Golda's BalconyI saw Valerie Harper last night as Golda. What energy that woman has! And her ability to go from the serious, to the whimsical, to the logistical was excellent. The show, though written in a reverential and melodramatic style, still is worth attention. The life and times of Golda were truly amazing. Here is a woman who spanned continents, wars, oppressions, and helped to build a Jewish nation.
The play gives us this information in flashbacks of reverie as Golda is preparing to release a nuclear attack on the Egyptians and the Syrians in the '73 Yom Kippur War. She is only waiting for Kissinger to get back to her to see if the US wil give its aid to Israel, so Israel won't use the nuclear option.
So the play is a bit like the Cuban Missile Crisis with the history of the building of the State of Israel. We see her mooods, her energy, her passion, her competition with the men in politics -- Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, etc., and her relationship with her husband that she had to continually leave behind in her work to build Israel.
But what was missing was the depth, the introspection, the self-awareness of history in the making, and the Jewish questionning that must have come into her decision making processes. Other than throwing in that she liked to make chicken soup for her soldiers, Gibson could have gone deeper than that.
A few years ago "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn opened, positing what might have happened at a meeting of Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, both Nobel laureates, in September 1941 when Germany was advancing in the research to build the atomic bomb. The play was a Brechtian approach to the intricacies of the mind and the life and death consequences that science can have. It was both chilling and written like a mathematical puzzle. It was an example of how history can inform our thinking and how the actors on the world stage can become as gods.
Golda was in that moment, not only in'73, but as a Jew who had been over continents and lived through the time of the Holocaust. What was going on in her soul? What was her Jewish soul? This is what is lacking in Gibson's play.
The play gives us this information in flashbacks of reverie as Golda is preparing to release a nuclear attack on the Egyptians and the Syrians in the '73 Yom Kippur War. She is only waiting for Kissinger to get back to her to see if the US wil give its aid to Israel, so Israel won't use the nuclear option.
So the play is a bit like the Cuban Missile Crisis with the history of the building of the State of Israel. We see her mooods, her energy, her passion, her competition with the men in politics -- Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, etc., and her relationship with her husband that she had to continually leave behind in her work to build Israel.
But what was missing was the depth, the introspection, the self-awareness of history in the making, and the Jewish questionning that must have come into her decision making processes. Other than throwing in that she liked to make chicken soup for her soldiers, Gibson could have gone deeper than that.
A few years ago "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn opened, positing what might have happened at a meeting of Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, both Nobel laureates, in September 1941 when Germany was advancing in the research to build the atomic bomb. The play was a Brechtian approach to the intricacies of the mind and the life and death consequences that science can have. It was both chilling and written like a mathematical puzzle. It was an example of how history can inform our thinking and how the actors on the world stage can become as gods.
Golda was in that moment, not only in'73, but as a Jew who had been over continents and lived through the time of the Holocaust. What was going on in her soul? What was her Jewish soul? This is what is lacking in Gibson's play.
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Golda's BalconyI saw Valerie Harper last night as Golda. What energy that woman has! And her ability to go from the serious, to the whimsical, to the logistical was excellent. The show, though written in a reverential and melodramatic style, still is worth attention. The life and times of Golda were truly amazing. Here is a woman who spanned continents, wars, oppressions, and helped to build a Jewish nation.
The play gives us this information in flashbacks of reverie as Golda is preparing to release a nuclear attack on the Egyptians and the Syrians in the '73 Yom Kippur War. She is only waiting for Kissinger to get back to her to see if the US wil give its aid to Israel, so Israel won't use the nuclear option.
So the play is a bit like the Cuban Missile Crisis with the history of the building of the State of Israel. We see her mooods, her energy, her passion, her competition with the men in politics -- Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, etc., and her relationship with her husband that she had to continually leave behind in her work to build Israel.
But what was missing was the depth, the introspection, the self-awareness of history in the making, and the Jewish questionning that must have come into her decision making processes. Other than throwing in that she liked to make chicken soup for her soldiers, Gibson could have gone deeper than that.
A few years ago "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn opened, positing what might have happened at a meeting of Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, both Nobel laureates, in September 1941 when Germany was advancing in the research to build the atomic bomb. The play was a Brechtian approach to the intricacies of the mind and the life and death consequences that science can have. It was both chilling and written like a mathematical puzzle. It was an example of how history can inform our thinking and how the actors on the world stage can become as gods.
Golda was in that moment, not only in'73, but as a Jew who had been over continents and lived through the time of the Holocaust. What was going on in her soul? What was her Jewish soul? This is what is lacking in Gibson's play.
The play gives us this information in flashbacks of reverie as Golda is preparing to release a nuclear attack on the Egyptians and the Syrians in the '73 Yom Kippur War. She is only waiting for Kissinger to get back to her to see if the US wil give its aid to Israel, so Israel won't use the nuclear option.
So the play is a bit like the Cuban Missile Crisis with the history of the building of the State of Israel. We see her mooods, her energy, her passion, her competition with the men in politics -- Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon, etc., and her relationship with her husband that she had to continually leave behind in her work to build Israel.
But what was missing was the depth, the introspection, the self-awareness of history in the making, and the Jewish questionning that must have come into her decision making processes. Other than throwing in that she liked to make chicken soup for her soldiers, Gibson could have gone deeper than that.
A few years ago "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn opened, positing what might have happened at a meeting of Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, both Nobel laureates, in September 1941 when Germany was advancing in the research to build the atomic bomb. The play was a Brechtian approach to the intricacies of the mind and the life and death consequences that science can have. It was both chilling and written like a mathematical puzzle. It was an example of how history can inform our thinking and how the actors on the world stage can become as gods.
Golda was in that moment, not only in'73, but as a Jew who had been over continents and lived through the time of the Holocaust. What was going on in her soul? What was her Jewish soul? This is what is lacking in Gibson's play.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
The Angel of InspirationThe Angel of History:
A Klee drawing named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
— Walter Benjamin(1),
Ninth Thesis on the Philosophy of History
Recently I have been thinking about Benjamin's Angel of History as I have been preparing for my final classes. I re-read a wonderful piece by Raymond Barglow from Tikkun(2). He uses Benjamin's piece as a way into the mind -- the mind of humanity, Barglow's family's minds, and the mind of Jews affected by totalitarianism. Others have written about the Angel as a meditation on history and history as a being that looks back, yet is propelled forward by the wreckage of time.
Lately I have been thinking of it more from an aesthetic perspective. Is the Angel an angel of the arts and is s/he mourning the loss of culture and the arts? Is the Angel seeing the remains of culture that have been swept up in a mechanistic world, that only sees things in terms of "product" and "commodities" and "acquisitions".
Is this Angel of Arts and Culture looking into the future and seeing the wars and famines and devastations caused by societies that limit the creative spirit? The Nazis prohibited "Degenerate Art" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art and Christian Fundamentalists wanted to censure Serrano's depiction of the crucifix in urine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ
Today there are those who want to pass a constitutional amendment to disallow gay people to have legal unions and though it probably won't pass it will be used to define who is a "liberal" and therefore have the same effect of political censure.
Tony Kushner wrote "Angels in America" and in an ever-so prescient artistry, evoked the McCarthy period that blacklisted those who are in an outsider culture in America -- gay people, Jews, blacks, women, artists -- all under the rubric of "commie". And he used the image of Benjamin's Angel in History as the image of the outsider swept along by events, yearning to look back through the wreckage of hate, violence, despair, bigotry, and oppression.
Yet this is an image that comes from the Hebrew Bible. It originates as a vision by the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel I:1) and describes an angel that has multiple faces, legs, wings, wheels, fire, torches, multi-directional, with an indescribable form above it and an awe-inspiring gleam. and this creature came to Ezekiel to give him the words as a text that he ate so that he could speak to the Jews in exile.
What have we done to that Angel? This is the Angel of Creation, the Angel of Art, Culture, Aesthetics, Multiple Forms, Inclusivity, Visions -- the Angel for the Exiles.
(1)Walter Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 27, 1940) was a German Jewish Marxist literary critic and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and the Jewish mysticism of Gershom Scholem.Benjamin was known during his life as an essayist, translator and literary critic. Since the appearance of his Schriften in 1955, 15 years after his death, Benjamin's work has been the subject of numerous books and essays. As a sociological and cultural critic Benjamin combined ideas of Jewish mysticism with historical materialism in a body of work which was an entirely novel contribution to Marxist philosophy and aesthetic theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin
(2)The Angel of History: Walter Benjamin’s Vision of Hope and Despair
by Raymond Barglow
Published in "Tikkun Magazine," November 1998
http://www.barglow.com/angel_of_history.htm
A Klee drawing named “Angelus Novus” shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
— Walter Benjamin(1),
Ninth Thesis on the Philosophy of History
Recently I have been thinking about Benjamin's Angel of History as I have been preparing for my final classes. I re-read a wonderful piece by Raymond Barglow from Tikkun(2). He uses Benjamin's piece as a way into the mind -- the mind of humanity, Barglow's family's minds, and the mind of Jews affected by totalitarianism. Others have written about the Angel as a meditation on history and history as a being that looks back, yet is propelled forward by the wreckage of time.
Lately I have been thinking of it more from an aesthetic perspective. Is the Angel an angel of the arts and is s/he mourning the loss of culture and the arts? Is the Angel seeing the remains of culture that have been swept up in a mechanistic world, that only sees things in terms of "product" and "commodities" and "acquisitions".
Is this Angel of Arts and Culture looking into the future and seeing the wars and famines and devastations caused by societies that limit the creative spirit? The Nazis prohibited "Degenerate Art" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art and Christian Fundamentalists wanted to censure Serrano's depiction of the crucifix in urine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ
Today there are those who want to pass a constitutional amendment to disallow gay people to have legal unions and though it probably won't pass it will be used to define who is a "liberal" and therefore have the same effect of political censure.
Tony Kushner wrote "Angels in America" and in an ever-so prescient artistry, evoked the McCarthy period that blacklisted those who are in an outsider culture in America -- gay people, Jews, blacks, women, artists -- all under the rubric of "commie". And he used the image of Benjamin's Angel in History as the image of the outsider swept along by events, yearning to look back through the wreckage of hate, violence, despair, bigotry, and oppression.
Yet this is an image that comes from the Hebrew Bible. It originates as a vision by the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel I:1) and describes an angel that has multiple faces, legs, wings, wheels, fire, torches, multi-directional, with an indescribable form above it and an awe-inspiring gleam. and this creature came to Ezekiel to give him the words as a text that he ate so that he could speak to the Jews in exile.
What have we done to that Angel? This is the Angel of Creation, the Angel of Art, Culture, Aesthetics, Multiple Forms, Inclusivity, Visions -- the Angel for the Exiles.
(1)Walter Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 27, 1940) was a German Jewish Marxist literary critic and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and the Jewish mysticism of Gershom Scholem.Benjamin was known during his life as an essayist, translator and literary critic. Since the appearance of his Schriften in 1955, 15 years after his death, Benjamin's work has been the subject of numerous books and essays. As a sociological and cultural critic Benjamin combined ideas of Jewish mysticism with historical materialism in a body of work which was an entirely novel contribution to Marxist philosophy and aesthetic theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin
(2)The Angel of History: Walter Benjamin’s Vision of Hope and Despair
by Raymond Barglow
Published in "Tikkun Magazine," November 1998
http://www.barglow.com/angel_of_history.htm
Monday, May 29, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Is it God or Is it Culture?There seems to be a disconnect betweenpeople thinking about Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a culture. Judaism has both and the two sometimes live well together and sometimes not. Jewish art does not have to be religious, sacred, or ritualized. It can be religious or deal with religious questions, but Jewish art can also be about the history of Jews, it can incorporate Jewish lives and socializations, it can reflect on Jews as outsiders or Jews as perceived by non-Jews, it can utilize major Jewish themes such as tzedekah (social justice) or tikkun olam (repairing the world), the covenant with one God, or Jewish learning in an intertextual methodology -- and it can meld all of this together into a really delicious blend that is its own aesthetic.
--DYC
--DYC
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Posted on nextbook.org
Christian art served the church. There are Jewish artists, like my husband and myself. But why does there have to be Jewish art? What criteria would be necessary to call any art Jewish? Shouldn't art serve us all?
Posted by Jeanne wolf on 05.18.06
Judaism and art, from my experiences of the two, are in conflict with one another. Judaism is about being responsible, rational, and true to God's Commandments. Whereas art is about invention, being irrational, and turning to one's imagination. Therefore, the term, "Jewish art," is an oxymoron. However, "Art Judaica," I believe, is acceptable, insofar as the object or piece "serves" a Jewish ritual purpose or custom.
Posted by Michael C. Duke on 05.18.06
Christian art served the church. There are Jewish artists, like my husband and myself. But why does there have to be Jewish art? What criteria would be necessary to call any art Jewish? Shouldn't art serve us all?
Posted by Jeanne wolf on 05.18.06
Judaism and art, from my experiences of the two, are in conflict with one another. Judaism is about being responsible, rational, and true to God's Commandments. Whereas art is about invention, being irrational, and turning to one's imagination. Therefore, the term, "Jewish art," is an oxymoron. However, "Art Judaica," I believe, is acceptable, insofar as the object or piece "serves" a Jewish ritual purpose or custom.
Posted by Michael C. Duke on 05.18.06
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
In Response to NEXTBOOK's Robin Cembalist "Painting The Town"http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=332
The discussion about Jewish art and culture always mystifies me. Do we have the same discussion about the African-American influence on jazz? Do we wonder if Western art and culture were influenced by Christianity?
There is a distinctive nature to art created by Jews and of course the closer they are to their Jewishness the more distinctive it is. Denying whether Chagall created Jewish art is like saying Da Vinci's The Last Supper isn't about Christianity. (I guess that is what the Da Vinci Codes are about)
As for Jewish art that isn't so apparently Jewish (which mught be found by "cool Jews") there is an aesthetic that enters into their work that mingles themes of loss, wandering, the outsider and righteousness with techniques of trans-chronicity, inter-textual narratives, multiple artistic forms, the intermingling of high art with popular culture, a highly developed self-consciousness. This can be seen in the works of Chaim Soutine to Modigliani, to David Mamet, to Wendy Wasserstein, Woody Allen, to Leonard Bernstein, and on and on.
Please see and join the conversation on www.livelyartsjewishculture.blogspot.com
The discussion about Jewish art and culture always mystifies me. Do we have the same discussion about the African-American influence on jazz? Do we wonder if Western art and culture were influenced by Christianity?
There is a distinctive nature to art created by Jews and of course the closer they are to their Jewishness the more distinctive it is. Denying whether Chagall created Jewish art is like saying Da Vinci's The Last Supper isn't about Christianity. (I guess that is what the Da Vinci Codes are about)
As for Jewish art that isn't so apparently Jewish (which mught be found by "cool Jews") there is an aesthetic that enters into their work that mingles themes of loss, wandering, the outsider and righteousness with techniques of trans-chronicity, inter-textual narratives, multiple artistic forms, the intermingling of high art with popular culture, a highly developed self-consciousness. This can be seen in the works of Chaim Soutine to Modigliani, to David Mamet, to Wendy Wasserstein, Woody Allen, to Leonard Bernstein, and on and on.
Please see and join the conversation on www.livelyartsjewishculture.blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
The Dylan ApproachIn the May 1 New Yorker Bob Dylan is quoted from his memoirs "Chronicles" about the Brecht/Weill Threepenny Opera:
"They were erratic, unrhythmical, herky-jerky---wierd visions....Every song seemed to come from some obscure tradition, seemed to have a pistol in its hip pocket, a club or a brickbat and they came at you in crutches, braces and wheelchairs. They were like folk songs in nature, but unlike folk songs, too, because they were sophisticated...
(referring to "Pirate Jenny") I took the song apart and unzipped it. It was the form, the free verse association, the structure, and disregard for the known certainty of melodic patterns to make it seriously matter, to give it its cutting edge."
Here we have a description of the Jewish artist referring back to the Weillian song, that is already intertextual, Dylan then deconstructs it and reinvents it in an intertextual way.
How Talmudic!
"They were erratic, unrhythmical, herky-jerky---wierd visions....Every song seemed to come from some obscure tradition, seemed to have a pistol in its hip pocket, a club or a brickbat and they came at you in crutches, braces and wheelchairs. They were like folk songs in nature, but unlike folk songs, too, because they were sophisticated...
(referring to "Pirate Jenny") I took the song apart and unzipped it. It was the form, the free verse association, the structure, and disregard for the known certainty of melodic patterns to make it seriously matter, to give it its cutting edge."
Here we have a description of the Jewish artist referring back to the Weillian song, that is already intertextual, Dylan then deconstructs it and reinvents it in an intertextual way.
How Talmudic!
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Dancing the Dance When authenticity comes up I'm always left in mind of Yehudah Gellman's article "Teshuvah and Authenticity": "Consider the first human being ever to have danced a dance. It was surely a complete expression of the person's reason for dancing. But consider now the second person ever to have danced a dance. For him it was harder to dance his own dance. Why? Because he had once seen someone else dance, and now there was a danger of dancing not his own dance, but someone else's. There was a danger of allowing the form of the dance to replace its essence. And the more manking has danced, the harder it has become to dance one's very own dance." (Tradition, 20(3) Fall 1982)
5/09/06 10:39 PM
robbie
5/09/06 10:39 PM
robbie
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Reflections on The Recent Death of Luba KadisonThis homage to Luba Kadison indicates the importance of Yiddish Theatre and the acting aesthetic that has so influenced American theatre and performance to this day. From Stella Adler and her acting school, to Lee Strasburg and Actors Studio, to even the current revival of "Awake and Sing" we can see a continual wellspring of Jewish performance that energizes American theatre and performance. Chloe Veltman's story about Jerry Stiller is interesting because it demonstrates a Jewish performance professional and social lineage that continues to this day. The article I am writing about can be found on http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=331&source=email
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
The ChosenSo I saw The Chosen last night at Writers Theatre, outside Chicago. It was a decent production, very true to the book as I remember it. Nevertheless it bothered me. It was very good at showing observant Jews beyond their stereotypes.
But it didn't seem to have a point of view. It was so busy being respectful it didn't have an edge. It had a narrator, Chaim Potok I suppose-the older Reuven Malter, and he was very pleasant and the rabbi we all wish we had. He was warm, thoughtful, animated, seemingly easy to get along with. And the set seemed to be in the rabbi's study, so it had a comfortable panelled wood feeling about it. But gone was the time period it was set in, WWII (though it came up enough), economic difficulties, and the desire to assimilate (the character from the book, in the hospital, who loses an eye and who is a wise-cracking secular Jew, doesn't make an appearance) were faint at best. The play lacked the bite and anguish of the times because it was mostly about Jews getting along with each other.
Recently Maurice Sendak was interviewed on the radio show "Fresh Air" and he talked about how that time period was so depressing for his family and other Jewish families he knew. The War made everything feel like Jews had to disappear and their homelife was filled with guilt, pain, and suffering.
Nevertheless the play was a well directed and acted production and the things it got right, it got right very well -- giving a good sense of the importance of study for Jewish knowledge, observance, and tradition; the problems of fathers expecting too much from their children; the friendship of the two boys and how they supported each other like a Jonathan and David -- all done at a high level.
Of course it exhibited a strong Jewish sensibility, not only in its content, but through the staging of the narrator, time and space conflation, and scenes that were both about Talmudic interpretation and written as though they were intertextual midrash. For instance the use of the narrator and how he stepped in and out of the story, the story of the baseball game, the scene with numerology that leads to deeper spiritual meanings in the texts, the mystical use of silence, and the singing of Chasidic niggunim, all lent itself to a very strong Jewish aesthetic.
When Chaim Potok wrote the book, The Chosen, it was the first novel that depicted religious Jews positively and showed their drive to succeed in America and their desire to explore pathways to faith. It was revolutionary and perhaps still revolutionary today because it shows that faith and learning, whether religious learning or secular learning, can live together even if they sometimes make each other uncomfortable. Today in the age of political false messiahs and fundamentalist creationism, The Chosen may still have something to teach us.
But it didn't seem to have a point of view. It was so busy being respectful it didn't have an edge. It had a narrator, Chaim Potok I suppose-the older Reuven Malter, and he was very pleasant and the rabbi we all wish we had. He was warm, thoughtful, animated, seemingly easy to get along with. And the set seemed to be in the rabbi's study, so it had a comfortable panelled wood feeling about it. But gone was the time period it was set in, WWII (though it came up enough), economic difficulties, and the desire to assimilate (the character from the book, in the hospital, who loses an eye and who is a wise-cracking secular Jew, doesn't make an appearance) were faint at best. The play lacked the bite and anguish of the times because it was mostly about Jews getting along with each other.
Recently Maurice Sendak was interviewed on the radio show "Fresh Air" and he talked about how that time period was so depressing for his family and other Jewish families he knew. The War made everything feel like Jews had to disappear and their homelife was filled with guilt, pain, and suffering.
Nevertheless the play was a well directed and acted production and the things it got right, it got right very well -- giving a good sense of the importance of study for Jewish knowledge, observance, and tradition; the problems of fathers expecting too much from their children; the friendship of the two boys and how they supported each other like a Jonathan and David -- all done at a high level.
Of course it exhibited a strong Jewish sensibility, not only in its content, but through the staging of the narrator, time and space conflation, and scenes that were both about Talmudic interpretation and written as though they were intertextual midrash. For instance the use of the narrator and how he stepped in and out of the story, the story of the baseball game, the scene with numerology that leads to deeper spiritual meanings in the texts, the mystical use of silence, and the singing of Chasidic niggunim, all lent itself to a very strong Jewish aesthetic.
When Chaim Potok wrote the book, The Chosen, it was the first novel that depicted religious Jews positively and showed their drive to succeed in America and their desire to explore pathways to faith. It was revolutionary and perhaps still revolutionary today because it shows that faith and learning, whether religious learning or secular learning, can live together even if they sometimes make each other uncomfortable. Today in the age of political false messiahs and fundamentalist creationism, The Chosen may still have something to teach us.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
What Is Authentic? Today I was in a discussion about Jewish arts and culture. The crux of the discussion was that what usually passes as Jewish culture is not authentic.
What does that mean? Does it mean that Jewish culture has to justify itself? Does it mean that culture from outside of the Jewish religion isn't authentic? It gets to what I wrote before, is there such a thing as pure Jewish culture? When Leonard Bernstein wrote Kaddish and was influenced by Western music, was it not Jewish?
I happen to like the word authentic. It implies a search for something. So, a search for Jewish arts -- what shape would that take?
What does that mean? Does it mean that Jewish culture has to justify itself? Does it mean that culture from outside of the Jewish religion isn't authentic? It gets to what I wrote before, is there such a thing as pure Jewish culture? When Leonard Bernstein wrote Kaddish and was influenced by Western music, was it not Jewish?
I happen to like the word authentic. It implies a search for something. So, a search for Jewish arts -- what shape would that take?
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture
Lively Jewish Arts and Culture The other night I heard a speaker, Dr Patricia Erens, talk about Hollywood films with Jewish characters, themes, and images. Her major point was that there are specific ways "Hollywood" has depicted Jews and that they pretty much have been the same since the seventies. In a sense, that representations of the Jew in "Hollywood" haven't changed to this day. I questionned her about films such as those made by the Coen brothers and David Mamet and even a comedy like "Meet the Fokkers" (that we both agreed was terrible -- though Ben Stiller is interesting) and she said that pretty much things are the same.
I wonder about this. For instance (and maybe this is coming from an "indie" approach rather than a "Hollywood" approach) but what about in The Big Lebowski or in Barton Fink -- I think both of these films are very interesting in their portrayals of Jews. And even in the newer Woody Allen films like Deconstructing Harry, Allen creates new Jewish characters.
--DYC
I wonder about this. For instance (and maybe this is coming from an "indie" approach rather than a "Hollywood" approach) but what about in The Big Lebowski or in Barton Fink -- I think both of these films are very interesting in their portrayals of Jews. And even in the newer Woody Allen films like Deconstructing Harry, Allen creates new Jewish characters.
--DYC
Friday, April 28, 2006
A Beginning
This is the first of what I hope are many postings to stimulate a worldwide discussion on the Lively Jewish Arts and Culture. I am connected to the website All About Jewish Theatre -- www.jewish-theatre.com -- which is posting and generating many projects of great interest and excitement. I hope you go to visit there and conversation can come out of that as well.
I also have my own webpage which I encourage you to visit:
http://www.historybox.com/throughline/index1.htm
Some of my writing is on that site.
But I am interested in hearing from people about what they think of as Jewish arts and culture:
Do you think it's a "Seinfeld" television show or is it something else?
Is it something that comes out of religion or is it part of the ongoing existence of the Jewish experience in the world?
Is it monolithic or pluralistic?
Is there purity in it or is it affected by the cultures around and within us?
Is it unique in world culture, for instance can you look at a painting or see a performance and say that is Jewish cultural expression?
And if it is unique, then what are those unique components and where do they come from?
As I write in the title this is just a beginning.....
I also have my own webpage which I encourage you to visit:
http://www.historybox.com/throughline/index1.htm
Some of my writing is on that site.
But I am interested in hearing from people about what they think of as Jewish arts and culture:
Do you think it's a "Seinfeld" television show or is it something else?
Is it something that comes out of religion or is it part of the ongoing existence of the Jewish experience in the world?
Is it monolithic or pluralistic?
Is there purity in it or is it affected by the cultures around and within us?
Is it unique in world culture, for instance can you look at a painting or see a performance and say that is Jewish cultural expression?
And if it is unique, then what are those unique components and where do they come from?
As I write in the title this is just a beginning.....
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