OTHER FEATURED ARTISTS
Baruch Nachshon of Hevron. His canvasses express a yearning for fulfillment & re-demption in the spirit of Judaism's ancient traditions. "The Jewish past has been well-represented in art," he says, but no one has represented the future Messianic Age." MORE
Yaakov Kaszemacher of Safed creates Kab-balistic and geometric abstractions & con-structions, combining geometry with the universal wisdom of Torah, and explores the photographic docu-mentation of religious Haredi Jewish life and Torah." MORE
Eliyah Succot of Jerusalem was inspired by the beauty of the Galil & the holiness of Eretz Yisrael.
At the end of the Yom Kippur War, his paintings became more & more charged with prayers for the final redemption - praying, dancing figures, the Torah, revelations of inner & outer light, the land & the sky of Israel, amidst bright pastel colors imbued with great hope and promise.
Now, in Jerusalem he balances his time - nights and parts of his days immersed in Torah study in a Yeshiva minutes from the Holy Wall & each day carving out time to work on his paintings."
Kabbalah is the various teachings dealing with Jewish mysticism, its prime source being the Sefer HaZohar, the Book of Splendor, based on the teachings of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochi, who lived in the First Century.
The common translation of the word Kabbalah is "receiving", implying that the teachings were originally and are still best transmitted from master to disciple. Another interesting meaning from the same Hebrew root word is to "find parallels" or analogues between the dimensions of space, time and soul.
Kabbalah and Art may seem to be contradictory, because of Judaism's long iconoclastic tradition, the only art tolerated being the artisanship of ritual objects, such as candelabra and spice boxes. However, the text of Zohar, is very stimulating visually, always enjoining the reader "to come and see" (as opposed to the Talmud, which states "it was heard") and can help the artist who studies it seriously to attain an expansive conciousness for creating inspired work.