Month: April 2022

Steps toward Creativity

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The kabbalistic model of creative process, both Divine and human, is depicted by ten sephirot with twenty-two pathways linking them. It is called a “Tree of Life.” It was crystallized by Rabbi Isaac Luria, known as The Ari, and his circle in the Galilee Mountain town of Tzfat in the sixteenth century

In his Through A Bible Lens, and Photographing God, Melvin Alexenberg urges us to fulfill our God given capabilities as creative individuals. In both books, Alexenberg uses his own experience with his Cyberangels  as a personal  example of the kabbalistic model of the creative process. 

An artist, educator, writer working at the interface between art, science, technology and Jewish consciousness, Mel Alexenberg has evolved cyberangels as an expression of that interface. He describes their origin: 

“In celebration of Miami’s centennial, I digitized an angel drawn by Rembrandt and sent it flying between the four corners of the USA. The single angel image was deconstructed and routed through cyberspace between Miami and San Diego, along multiple pathways. When the data packets reached San Diego, they were reassembled in the correct sequence, based on the ID numbers that were assigned in Miami.”(Through A Bible Lens (p. 51). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.)

Sephirot to Creativity

The Ten Sephirot as Suggested by Mel Alexenberg

 

Keter

The first stage in the creative process is the sephirah Crown (Keter)—the will to create coupled with faith that one can create, and anticipation that the creative process is pleasurable. Without this intention, self-confidence, and hope for gratification, the creative process has no beginning.  (Through A Bible Lens (pp. 77-78). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.)

Halacha of awareness

Hokhmah

Crown sets the stage for the sephirah of Wisdom (Hokhmah) that requires a selfless state, nullification of the ego that opens gateways to supraconscious and subconscious realms. When active seeking ceases, when consciously preoccupied with unrelated activities, when we least expect it, the germ of the creative idea bursts into our consciousness. This sudden flash of insight is what the kabbalah calls Wisdom. Through A Bible Lens (pp. 77-78). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Binah

Like the sperm that is received by the ovum in the womb, the unformed germ of an idea from the sephirah of Wisdom enters into the sephirah of Understanding (Binah).

 

Together, Wisdom, Understanding, and Knowledge form the cognitive realm of thoughts. Knowledge both unites Wisdom and Understanding and is the gateway to the next six sephirot that form the affective realm of emotions. Through A Bible Lens (p. 79). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Hesed

The fourth sephirah of Compassion (Hesed) is openness to all possibilities. I thought of the hundreds of artistic options open to me in creating computer angels and I loved them all.

Through A Bible Lens (p. 79). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Gevurah

Compassion is counterbalanced by the fifth sephirah of Strength (Gevurah), the strength to set limits, to make judgments, to choose between myriad options. Through A Bible Lens (p. 79). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Tiferet

The sixth sephirah of Beauty (Tiferet). This sephirah represents a beautiful balance between the counterforces of Compassion and Strength. It is the feeling of harmony between all my possible options and the choices I had made. Beauty is the aesthetic core of the creative process in which harmonious integration of openness and closure is experienced as deeply felt beauty. Through A Bible Lens (pp. 80-81). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Netzah

The seventh sephirah of Success (Netzah) is the feeling of being victorious in the quest for significance. I felt that I had the power to overcome any obstacles that may stand in the way of realizing my artwork. Netzah can also mean “to conduct” or “orchestrate” as in the word that begins many of the Psalms. I had the confidence that I could orchestrate all the aspects of creating a multimedia symphony of computer angels arising from the bowels of New York City.  Through A Bible Lens (pp. 81-82). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Hod

The eight sephirah of Splendor (Hod) is the glorious feeling that the final shaping of the idea is going so smoothly that it seems as effortless as the splendid movements of a graceful dancer. The sephirah of Success is an active self-confidence in contrast with the sephirah of Splendor, which is a passive confidence born of a trust in Divine providence that “all will be good.” It is the power to advance smoothly with the determination and perseverance born of deep inner commitment. It is the wonderful feeling that all is going as it should. CREATIVE INTEGRATION

Through A Bible Lens (pp. 81-82). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Yeshod

The ninth sephirah of Foundation (Yesod) is the sensuous bonding of Success and Splendor in a union that leads to the birth of the fully formed idea. It funnels the integrated forces of intention, thought, and emotions of the previous eight sephirot into the world of physical action. In Chronicles 1:29, this sephirah is called All or Everything (kol). It channels everything that was playing out in my mind into the craft of making the artwork. It transports my private mental world into a public environmental arena in which I can create a product to communicate my ideas to others.  Through A Bible Lens (pp. 81-82). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Malkhut

This tenth sephirah of Kingdom (Malkhut) is the noble realization of my concepts and feelings in the kingdom of time and space. It involves all the practical details that go into physically making an artwork.  Through A Bible Lens (p. 82). Elm Hill. Kindle Edition.

Eternal Echoes

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Eternal Echoes-Reading the Bible as Literature

As a literary work the Bible contains accounts of our human struggle for life’s meaning and records of attempts to answer questions. Echoes of these accounts have influenced the human creative spirit finding expression not only in weekly exposition by clergy, but in poetry, novels, plays, paintings, sculpture and other media.

Four sections will serve as examples of how to approach the Bible as an literary anthology of human experience: The Creation Myth in Genesis, The Sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis, The Book of Jonah and The Book of Ruth.

These sections will be read in class and examined as literature, examined against historical background and how they have found reverberations in the human experience.

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Nicolas Behrmann is an ordained rabbi having a B.H.L. and M.A.H.L from the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. As an educator, counselor and preacher, he has devoted a lifetime to listening to these eternal echoes opening up the Bible for others as literature of human experience.

Midrash: written, visual, virtual and visceral

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Midrash

 

 

Ordination Diploma

Classical Training – Written Midrash

Split rock thinking

First the source:

“Is not my word like a fire?” saith the Lord, “and like a hammer that splits the rock into pieces!” (Jeremiah 23:29)

Then the Midrash

 

“In R. Ishmael’s school it was taught: “And like a hammer that splits the rock into pieces” i.e. just as the rock is split into many splinters, so also may one biblical verse convey many teachings.”

 

A variation of R. Tam reads:

“Just as the hammer when it smites an extraordinary hard object, may itself be split, so may the biblical verse, when subject to the scrutiny of a very keen intellect, split up into different meanings.

 

(Talmud – Sanhedrin section of Nezikin – Page 34A)

 

Visual Midrash “The Ten Commandments”

This 1983 glossy product brochure for Microsoft Word 3,  a word processing program for the pre-windows personal computer platform, DOS, reflects the honor and respect the world has given to the Hebrew Scriptures, the story-telling of the Jewish people in their ongoing search for meaningful lives.

That the stone chiseled Hebrew text of the Ten Commandments was used to convey the power and effectiveness of documents produced with this pioneering communications software speaks volumes beyond the original intent of the advertising team. The image transcends time, connecting technologies as it brings forth the biblical letters into their digital format. The relevance of the agricultural milieu’s spirituality in the age of cyberspace.

A “graven” image?

Midrash as Experience

A paperback version of Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, and a Shofar or Ram’s Horn used in Jewish Worship.

Let There be Light – A Sermon Environment at Hebrew Union College 1970

This sermon was conceived as both a textual sermon dealing with the biblical words “let there be light” and an experiential sermon flowing from the statement of Marshall McLuhan “The Medium is the Message.”

Following the basic assumption that light has become our electronic technology, the sermon was set up, or rather the sermonic environment was set up so that not only would the effect of electronic technology on us be talked about – but also be experienced through the use of five slide projectors and two video tape monitors.

Simulate the experience by imagining two voices, one for the lighter text, one for the darker text.

What you are experiencing (in the Beginning) right now (God) is what McLuhan (created the Heaven) talks (and the earth.) about (The earth) when he says that electric circuitry (was unformed and void) is an extension of the (and darkness was upon the) central (face of the deep) nervous system.

We get and are capable (and the spirit of God hovered over the) of receiving (face of the waters) a great deal of (and God said) information, (“Let there be light”) much of which is dealt with (and there was light) unconsciously.

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