The Akedah from the eyes of an Artist.

Abstract art is one of those areas where three Jews can have four opinions. There are times that the paint on the canvas was haphazardly placed and other times when it is obvious that there is much symbolic value in the placement of line and color. I like to see what artists' do with a common theme- in this case the binding of Isaac.




Marlen Burns is a classically trained artist who has been inspired by the words of Genesis: This image is an expression of the High Holy Day Torah portion that is chanted, telling the story of the binding of Isaac ( the Akedah.)
The Akedah was the tenth and final trial that G-d presented to Abraham. The first trials are shown as imperfect orbs, with the red orb representing the Akedah.
The column of black that runs through the center represents the moment of silence between the two words when the angels call out " Avraham...Avraham!"
During this moment, Abraham transitioned from having blind faith in G-d, to having perfect faith....from lack of understanding of G-d's will and request, to understanding.
The contrast of mind set is represented by the opposing sides of the black column...the left side is filled with trials; the right side shows perfect faith, as shown by the silver, perfectly round orb. The twisted lines of the ram's horn, the shofar, leads the viewer to this image of perfect faith as it refers the sacrifice used instead of Isaac.

The old switcheroo...

Philip Ratner does it again with his rendition interpretation of Esau receiving the (reluctant) blessing of his father Isaac. I was very excited last week when wandering my new Temple when I discovered amongst the collected Jewish art was a Philip Ratner sculpture. Now I know to where I will wander when I get shpilkes during services.This d'var is from Rabbi Dov Fisher....
In Parshat Toldot, we encounter the remarkable event described in Genesis 27, as Yitzhak prepares in blindness to confer an eternal blessing on one of his twin sons.

He wants to extend that blessing to the viscerally evil Esav, who nevertheless always has acted with the utmost respect for his father. Esav has Yitzhak figured out, and Yitzhak really loves him. By contrast, Rivkah is devoted uniquely to the simpler, gentler, less charismatic Yaakov.

Why the dichotomy? We have met Rivkah as a kind, young lady, offering water to slake the thirsts of Avraham's servant, Eliezer, and his camels. We have heard a midrash that her father, Betuel, attempted to poison Eliezer's food but died himself when an angel sent by God switched the plates. Later, we have learned of Rivkah's difficulty in conceiving and of her travails in bearing these particular twins to term.

We further will learn that her brother is worse than her dad. Besides her murderous father, Rivkah's brother, Lavan, is a prototype for Simon Legree. Lavan will squeeze some 20 years near-slavery out of his nephew and son-in-law, Yaakov, after switching daughters on Yaakov's wedding night, pulling the beautiful and desired Rachel out and slipping the sad-looking Leah in her stead. Even as Lavan steals from Yaakov for two decades, his own daughters will lament that he has stolen all he could from them, too, treating them as veritable strangers. That's Rivkah's bro.

So it emerges that although she is an incredibly sweet soul, Rivkah also grew up in a household with dramatic issues of dysfunctionality at its core. To put it simply, she grew up street-smart.

On the other hand, Yitzhak was intensively protected. Not only were his parents the progenitors and founding patriarch and matriarch of the Jewish people, but they further protected the spiritual elevations of their home by expelling the Yishmaels and Hagars who threatened Yitzhak's innocence.

The home was sterilized for spirituality, cleansed of any foreign influence. As a further protection, Avraham virtually hand picked Yitzhak's wife by setting guidelines when he dispatched Eliezer, his servant, to find a suitable match:

1) No one from the surrounding environs, thus no one who will bring along in-laws and other corrupting and disruptive influences;

2) Only someone from Avraham's own birthland in Charan, assuring both that the wife would be alien to the local environment, thus impeding assimilation into the morally perverse Canaanite culture, and that another set of prospective in-laws would be kept far out of reach.

Thus, Rivkah was raised in a streetwise milieu, while Yitzhak was extremely insulated. So Esav easily played to Yitzhak's innocence.

By contrast, Rivkah had the tools to read Esav like a roadmap. It then devolved on her to draw on her own street-smarts to save the day, to move her own intensely protected son, Yaakov, to the fore. For this, she drew on a tactic that seems unique to her family -- the switcheroo.

Few families practice the kind of prevalent switching that seems to have been endemic in the Betuel-Lavan-Rivkah family. Betuel switches the plates, trying to poison Eliezer. Lavan switches and disguises his daughters on Yaakov's wedding night. And Rivkah switches and disguises Yaakov for the blessing.

In time, as the family legends grow, Yaakov's sons one day will deceive him with animal blood they will say is Yosef's blood on the precious striped coat. And then Yosef will disguise himself from his brothers in the Pharaoh's palace.

In the end, is the switching of the brothers justified to assure that Yitzhak's blessing was conferred properly? The commentators are not all of one mind. What if Rivkah had tried reasoning with Yitzhak, even months and years earlier, trying to use her street-smarts to enlighten him, in his protected spiritual innocence, as to Esav's true character of evil? Perhaps she did try unsuccessfully, and we do not know. Perhaps not.

Yitzhak ultimately is satisfied that he acted correctly in blessing Yaakov; he reiterates Yaakov's blessing later with full scienter. But consider the price: Esav feels cheated and pledges to murder Yaakov as soon as his father dies.

Rivkah, hearing of the intent, desperately persuades Yitzhak to dispatch Yaakov to Lavan's house to find a wife. Yaakov ends up exiled for 20 years, victimized incessantly through two decades by an uncle and father-in-law so heinous, that the haggadah recounts that Lavan was worse than Pharaoh.

It is not clear whether Rivkah had an effective alternative to switching and disguising Yaakov to obtain Yitzhak's eternal blessing. But it does seem that the idea of switching may well have come from the culture of her upbringing, reared in the house of Betuel and Lavan. When in doubt, switch them out.

Sometimes it is useful for each of us to pause, too, and to wonder what practices and shticklach we practice in our homes, in full view of our children, with the attendant consideration of whether these behavioral quirks and anomalies that we sanction as normative and convenient will be passed down through our children and theirs in generations to come.

And in that light, we well might ask: Is it worth it? To deceive? To live by incessant white lies? To constantly criticize? To yell? To measure people by money? To deny fault and refuse ever to apologize? To always be the one who takes and never the one who gives? To be arrogant in one's self-estimation?

With children watching and emulating -- is it worth it?

First Love

An integral part of the Jewish wedding ceremony is the recitation of the sheva brachot, the seven blessings. The artist Dan Givon says of his Seven blessings Kiddush set and of his work in general, "My art is an expression of my Jewish identity. When designing Judaic Art, it is essential to understand its spiritual purpose as well as its functional use. Each work balances modern designs with tradition and function. Through these pieces, I strive to show today's generation that modern Judaica is art as well as a harmonious part of our modern lifestyles."


The marriage of Rebekah and Isaac is the first love story we encounter in the Torah. We have read about many married couples previously, but never before have we witnessed their first meeting or encountered the word “love,” as we do in Genesis 24:67 in reference to Isaac’s feelings for Rebekah.

The story of Isaac and Rebekah teaches us that there are many different reasons why a couple may get married. Some people marry for love, others because of financial concerns, and still others for political reasons or a desire to raise their social status.

In this instance, Abraham’s only concern is that his daughter-in-law comes from the land of his birth. Once a bride has been found for Isaac, Abraham seems to feel that his job is finished and he is free to take on a new wife, Keturah, after Sarah’s death. The text never tells us if Abraham even met Rebekah: His only desire was to ensure the status of his progeny as Hebrews.

Abraham’s unnamed servant (assumed to be Eliezer, who is mentioned in Genesis 15:2) is more concerned with finding a suitable mate for Isaac. Eliezer is wise enough to pray to God for guidance and hopes to find a woman who is beautiful both inside and out. Rebekah’s outward beauty is immediately evident, and her inward beauty manifests itself in her kindness and generosity at the well.

What was Rebekah’s motivation for agreeing to marry Isaac and leave her ancestral home? Some of our Sages suggest that she was living in a “house of scoundrels” and saw an opportunity to escape to a life that involved contact with more righteous people. But it is clear that when she sees Isaac for the first time, he sparks her interest: “Who is that man walking in the field toward us?” she asks the servant (Genesis 24:65). Obviously there was something about Isaac that was worth noticing.

The motivation for Isaac’s falling in love was the desire to alleviate the loneliness and sense of loss he experienced as a result of the death of his mother. The text tells us that “Isaac loved her [Rebekah] and thus found comfort after his mother’s death” (Genesis 24:67).

What lay ahead in the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah? Some may argue that they lived a happy life, while others would conclude that theirs was a marriage fraught with deception and misunderstanding. If Rebekah married Isaac in order to escape a difficult family life and Isaac married Rebekah in order to have someone to comfort him after the loss of his mother, what were the chances of their marriage being successful?

Sometimes when two people enter into a marriage with very different objectives, each of them can still derive satisfaction from their union. May God grant us the wisdom to choose spouses whose beauty delights us in many ways and whose motivations for marriage are in harmony with our own. (Rabbi Peter Kessler at URJ.org)

Hayyei Sarah Bereishit 23.1-25.18

Sorry about yesterday's missing post... life was a bit on the hectic side! Yes, life can interfere with blogging!

Biblical and Jewish theme in combination with the magnificent landscapes of the Land of Israel are the sources of inspiration that Ellen Horowitz of the Golan Heights draws upon when she creates her original paintings, prints and posters. "Rivkah represents the Jewish Mother in her full capacity to understand how her actions and labors have a direct bearing on whether or not her children realize their full potential for good or for evil -an awesome responsibility! It’s interesting to note that Rivka’s death is not recorded in Tanach. Perhaps it’s because Rivka never dies. She’s alive and well and living within every Mother of Israel."

Sarah dies at age 127 and is buried in the Machpeilah Cave in Hebron, which Abraham purchases from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver. Abraham's servant, Eliezer, is sent laden with gifts to Charan to find a wife for Isaac At the village well, Eliezer asks G-d for a sign: when the maidens come to the well, he will ask for some water to drink; the woman who will offer to give his camels to drink as well, shall be the one destined for his master's son. Rebecca, the daughter of Abraham's nephew Bethuel, appears at the well and passes the "test". Eliezer is invited to their home, where he repeats the story of the day's events. Rebecca returns with Eliezer to the land of Canaan, where they encounter Isaac praying in the field. Isaac marries Rebecca, loves her, and is comforted over the loss of his mother. Abraham takes a new wife, Keturah (Hagar) and fathers six additional sons, but Isaac is designated as his only heir. Abraham dies at age 175 and is buried beside Sarah by his two eldest sons. Isaac and Ishmael.