Counting
Anticipation is a powerful emotion indeed! When we count the omer, we are anticipating the holiday of Shavous and the re-enactment of receiving the Torah. We count each day, knowing full well that on the next day we will count again until forty-nine. We…
Purim: The Casting of Fate, Gyor National Ballet Theater
The Gyor National Ballet Theater of Hungary production of Purim: The Casting of Fate, presented at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan, is a powerful retelling of Megillas Esther transformed into dance. This modern ballet, fueled by…
Life on the Book: Constructions by Gad Almaliah
Honi The Circle Drawer (detail), 2001, construction by Gad Almaliah
The Land of Israel was possessed by a terrible drought and prayer was necessary. “It happened that the people said to Honi the Circle Drawer, pray for rain…
At The Library Of The Jewish Theological Seminary: The Word Became an Image
The visual image is not a problem in Judaism. We have countless examples of images and representations of Jewish subjects and ideas done by pious Jews throughout the centuries, whether as ancient…
Biblical Paintings - American Identity: An Appreciation
“And though I cannot attain to much herein, yet I am refreshed to have seen some glimpse thereof (as Moses saw the Land of Canaan afar off.) My aim and desire is to see how the words and…
The Power of Ritual Objects: 92 Years of Judaica at Bezalel
When one lights that very special menorah or breathes deeply near a hand-crafted besomiah at havdalah, one releases the “power of the ritual object and [confronts] the questions it raises.” Such Judaica is the…
Mazel Tov: The Bialystoker Synagogue
“And God made the two great luminaries, the greater luminary to dominate the day and the lesser luminary to dominate the night; and the stars" (Genesis 1:16). And it was so, sun, moon and stars, for all time. These basic…
At The Israel Museum
Ha’norah
On Shabbos evening I walked home on my normal route down Fifth Avenue towards Washington Square Park. Looking past the Washington Square Arch, slightly to the west and further downtown, I noticed a glow of lights and smoke illuminating the…
Connections: Moses Breaking the Tablets of the Law by Rembrandt
Rembrandt’s Moses reaches up grasping the Tablets of the Law as he descends the holy mountain. Firmly rooted in the mundane, the painting presents us with a startlingly image of Moses’ initial journey down the…
Suspended
A figure in the primitive mosaic is depicted suspended in mid-air, seeming to flee his father’s grasp and yet hovering dangerously close to an all consuming fire. It is our forefather Isaac, depicted as a small lad with his hands bound, and in some…
The Paintings of Leah Ashkenazy
You see, there is just something about that little girl that I can’t get out of my mind. How does she face those fire-breathing beasts? Her certainty shakes me and leave me sleepless. Is it because the two monsters threaten…
Music That Evokes the Beis HaMikdash: 12th Annual North American Jewish Choral Festival
We live in an age of longing. An age of intense longing one thousand nine hundred and twenty nine years old. We get up from Tisha b’Av not consoled, but resigned to…