Folding the Corners

by Susan Weinberg

Our last lab discussion!  It is always a little bittersweet as we prepare for our ending show and the close of the lab. We have become attached to our fellow artists and enjoy the regular contact the lab provides and the ideas it introduces. The lab has a five-year history during which it was generously funded by the Covenant Foundation.  As we wind down that grant we look to a future that will sustain these important connections in a slightly different form. 

For the final lab on this topic, Meryll Page began with an exercise.  We each were given a sheet of paper and asked to fold the corners.  Some of us did fancy folds, some tiny corners to preserve a writing surface. Still others had generous folds that left little room at all.  Meryll asked us to imagine the paper as a field of grain as we discussed the Law of Peah.

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the corner of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger; I the Lord am your God. You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.

The law is about generosity, to the land, to animals and to the poor. It is about regeneration of the field and of those in need. It is a faith statement that is a requirement of a belief in God.

So how much of the corner?  What is the minimum?  The law specified one sixtieth of the crop, but inserts a little flexibility tying it to the size of the field, the number of the poor and the abundance of the crop (see handout-Megillat Hesed-The Book of Loving Kindness).  Interestingly, the passage is tied to the concept of stealing, for to not be generous in this manner is in fact stealing from a stranger.

With this introduction, we turned to the Book of Ruth and explored the role of Boaz who was far more generous (Ruth 2:8) than the law required. He offered food, safety and extra gleanings to Ruth, topping it off with a blessing (Ruth 2:12).

In the next act, Ruth returns to Naomi with her generous gleanings.  Hearing that it is Boaz who was the source of such kindness, she too offers a blessing: Blessed be he of the Lord who hath not failed in His kindness to the living or to the dead. This blessing has an element of foreshadowing as it anticipates the fact that a child from a marriage of Boaz and Ruth carries on the name of Ruth’s dead husband. The child is considered the son of the dead man and ultimately it is yet another act of generosity as Boaz gives up his own patrimony.

So, what is the lesson of this passage? Be open to otherness. Be present in the act of giving by recognizing and valuing the other. All of this sets the stage for what David will be, descended from two people infused with loving kindness.

The second part of our session took place in the studio of Toni Dachis. When we entered her studio, we were asked to take a place at a table. There we found a variety of instruments. Before me was a toothbrush while other posts had paints, pastels, a plastic template, scissors, hole punches and other marking implements.  Each station had ten small squares of paper printed with a variety of words that we had explored in our labs, words such as Connection, Ostracize, Change, Limits, Frame, Refugee, Crossing and Inside.  We were given a short time to respond to the words using whatever tools were before us. Then we passed our creation to the person next to us and they added to it with their implement.  Boundaries were fluid as we shared with our neighbors in a collaborative effort.  At its conclusion, we were given an accordion folded strip of black paper on which to affix the images, creating a small book that memorialized our year of crossing boundaries.

A Trail of Breadcrumbs

by Susan Weinberg

Our last session began with an artwork by Chagall on the book of Ruth.  We had quickly identified it, drawing on our familiarity with his work, well within the frame of our knowledge. This session, Meryll held up an unfamiliar, but striking work, a papercut of the story of Ruth.  We were at a loss to name the artist (Diane Palley), this was unfamiliar territory, a precursor of our exploration of Judges which would take us outside of the frame of Ruth in order to better understand its meaning.

Meryll guided us to our first clue in the first line of Ruth 1:1 And it came to pass in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. (handout-Ruth & Judges) "Anything unusual?" she asked.  We focused in on the doubling of the words, judges judged. Perhaps this doubling was intended to draw our attention. Was famine a judgment? A punishment?  The Hebrew word vayahi seemed a bit of a lament, much like oy vay, pointing us outside the frame of Ruth to the book of Judges.

We read through Judges 21:5-24, a difficult passage of murder and mayhem, unconscionable behavior. It began with a building of an altar, a violation of the religious rules. Then it progresses to murder and the kidnapping of virgins as wives. At the end of the passage  in Judges 21:25 the author adds his own judgment and our second clue: In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

The people of Israel were lacking leadership and immersed in both religious and moral chaos.

In Judges 1 we get yet another clue. The tribe of Judah is presented as a preeminent tribe.  Who is from the tribe of Judah?  Boaz.

Finally we turned to Baba Batra in the Talmud (handout-Ruth & Judges). Through a series of retorts, Rabbi Yohanan underscored the fact that those being judged were judging the judges. This was a time of chaos, a time without leadership.

Clues had been strewn across our path, a trail of breadcrumbs that led us to Bethlehem, where Ruth and Naomi were now housed. In fact, those breadcrumbs led to a house of bread, the meaning of the name Bethlehem. Our solution is implied by the commentator of Judges 21:25. We need  a king to offer strong leadership and of course Ruth birthed the line that led to David. We'd come full circle.  The story of Ruth was a precursor of a future where kindness, loyalty and recognition of the other were underscored. God sat back and let the people find their way, treating each other respectfully, with kindness and generosity. What began in famine led to abundance and sharing.

Still more clues were scattered within the story through the meaning of names. Ruth means friend, Boaz-strength, Naomi- pleasantness.  When Naomi first returns in her grief, she asks to be called Mara which means bitterness.My favorite though was Orpah, the back of the neck, what she turned to Naomi as she returned to her home in Moab.

Chagall's White Crucifixion

Mark Rothko Chapel

The second part of our session was devoted to artist-led sessions. Roslye Ultan led us in an exploration of Jewish artists, particularly as they crossed boundaries into more Christian imagery. We began with the quintessential Jewish artist, Chagall. We described his work as dreamlike, free of gravitational pull, often with animals and most certainly narrative. Roslye also referenced  Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross and Mark Rothko's Chapel. Newman was interested in Kaballistic ideas and avoided "graven images" in his work.

We turned our attention to Chagall's White Crucifixion, one of over 30 crucifixions painted by Chagall. Here a talit is around his waist, perhaps hiding his circumcision  as in Christian iconography, yet here it is slyly covered with yet another Jewish symbol. The Christ figure is surrounded by imagery of the Wandering Jew, a rabbi fleeing with a torah and a burning synagogue. The cross is set in a beam of light. Is this a Christian story or has it perhaps been reclaimed? Chagall himself weighed in with these words, "For me, Christ has always symbolized the true type of the Jewish martyr." Chagall identified with Christ saying "Every day I carry a cross/ They push me and drag me by the hand/ Already the dark of night surrounds me/ You have deserted me, my God? Why? . . .I run upstairs/ To my dry brushes/ And am crucified like Christ/ Fixed with nails to the easel."

Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross

Benito Quinauela Martin

La Boca

And now it was time to tango, or at least explore its history with Vivi Szleifer, assisted by  Rony Szleifer. Vivi took us into the world of the gauchos and Eastern European immigrants who populated Bueno Aires in the La Boca neighborhood, an area of meat packing houses filled with heat and stench. This world was captured by the artist Benito Quinauela Martin whose imagery reflects both the heat and the hard life, but also has a celebratory feel, filled with color and movement. Vivi spoke of the music that was later reflected in the music of tango, the guitar of the gaucho, the drums of African music. Originally the tango was danced by two men as if locked in mortal combat.  Women found their way into tango, often as prostitutes originally, and that mortal combat morphed into something else. In the 1920s and 30s singing was added. If you are interested in the Powerpoint on tango, click here.

As always our session covered a broad swath, from following a trail of clues in Ruth, to exploring the crossing of boundaries by Jewish artists, to entering the multicultural complex world of tango.

Liminality: A Passage to Transformation

by Susan Weinberg

Meryll stood before us holding a small frame in her hand. Before us was an artwork of three women.  Who was the artist? How did we know?  Would we know the topic from the artwork alone?

We studied the image.  Clearly it was Chagall.  "How do you know?" she asked again. "Is there a signature?"  

"His signature is his style," we replied. 

She reminded us that we have a frame of artistic knowledge through which we view this image. We studied the image, identifying the characters of the story of Ruth.  Naomi, the mother-in-law, stood in the middle, an older woman, hands clasped.  Ruth placed her hand on Naomi's heart while Orpah, the other daughter-in-law stood behind Naomi, embracing her.

 Handout-Inside the Frame

 For more images of the story of Ruth
 
Just as we analyzed the image, we analyzed the story, abandoning our visual frame for time frames and geographical frames.  The Book of Ruth is compact, spanning 2-3 days, a journey on the road from Moab to Bethlehem.  This is a story of women, women on the margins, three widows.

The Biblical convention is to start on the road. It is a transition period in which a critical decision takes place.  Who is going on this journey?  Naomi tries to dissuade her daughter-in-laws from joining her. The story is concise with some key repetition.  One phrase is repeated twelve times in Chapter 1. "Return" (lashuv) is repeated by Naomi as she commands Ruth and Orpah to return to their mother's house (interestingly not their father's) where they can perhaps find husbands. Naomi gives this instruction three times, just as the rabbis refuse three times for a person seeking conversion. The conversion process is in fact modeled on this story. 

Ruth responds with this eloquent passage from 1:16-17. "whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God;  where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried; the LORD do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me."

Ruth makes several important statements here.  She assumes Naomi's God and in saying she will be buried where she is buried, she also adopts Naomi's faith as otherwise she would be unable to be buried in the same place. A conversion to Judaism is more complex than other faiths, including culture and people in addition to religion.

This is an unusual story. Its protagonists are women and they are supported by a bit of a Greek chorus, but it is a women's chorus.  Two passages involve the women of the city.  As Ruth and Naomi approached the city, it buzzed with excitement as the women called out,"Can this be Naomi?" (1:19-20)  Later in the story a child is born to Ruth and the chorus again sings the merits of Ruth who is better than seven sons. Throughout the story she is spoken of as possessing chesed (loving kindness)  and Eshet Hayil (a woman of valor). In an unusual passage they speak of the child as if it were born to Naomi, perpetuating her line.(4:14-17). 

The story of Ruth flowed naturally into our next topic which explored liminality, a passage in route to transformation, much as that which Ruth encountered on the road to Bethlehem. 

It was my turn to present to the lab and I focused the discussion on an examination of the passage into the unknown as we leave the familiar to enter something new and often challenging.

Threshold to my ancestor's home in Poland

Liminal means threshold. It is the space between boundaries where the old rules no longer apply, the new yet to be mastered. It is an anthropological term marking rites of passage. Liminal space is often a place of change and transformation, a place of challenge as we face the unknown. While the word resembles "limbo" which derives from a word meaning "border," its focus on passage and transformation is the important distinction. In limbo we are just stuck.

There are stages to liminality. First we must let go of the familiar, deciding what we can take into this new environment and what we must leave behind. Then comes that difficult stage of transformation, neither here nor there. Finally we learn how to adapt to our new environment. Disruption is often a trigger.  Our lives may be touched by change when someone close to us dies or we divorce. Perhaps we move to a new environment or lose our job.  All the elements that turn our life upside down are also triggers for what may prove to be transformative. I have a friend whose husband died unexpectedly, still a relatively young man. She spent a difficult year adjusting to this new reality and when we met after a time she told me that even though she missed her husband, she was learning to like this new life. She had moved through liminality to transformation.

Liminality can happen to a broader society as well.  War and natural disasters are often disruptions on a much broader scale. I would argue that our recent election was also an exercise in liminality, disrupting the things we believe about our country and our neighbors, the form of transformation, yet to be fully revealed.

Marking our crossing of boundaries with rituals is a concept found in our everyday life. When a guest enters our home we might offer them a drink.  A school bell and perhaps the pledge of allegiance marks the beginning of a school day. We have markers, rituals, that highlight the fact that we are entering a new environment. 

Religion uses rituals to honor such passages. In Judaism a "mezuzah" might be found at the door entry. It actually means "lintel" and marks our entry into a home. A bar or bat mitzvah marks our entrance to adulthood. The Havdallah ritual marks the end of Shabbat. 

While ritual marks the entrance or exit, Jewish holidays recognize the passage. What could be more liminal than  the 40 years in the desert that we celebrate at Passover? In Judaism we celebrate the journey, the preparation to receive the law, a period of transformation.  Purim has as its heroine, Esther. As a Jew masquerading as a non-Jew she has a foot in both worlds. As I analyzed each holiday I found they had a liminal state at their center, with the period of transformation central to the story. In fact as any writer knows, the period of transformation is the story.

People can be liminal as well. Immigrants and refugees have a foot in two worlds. So do those who are transgender. Many of those who are viewed as "the other" don't fit into the tidy boxes in which many like to see the world.  Ah, but no one can escape liminality if they have a teenager, caught between childhood and adulthood, the ultimate liminal being.

I think many artists and writers are liminal. Living in our world, but seeing the world with outsider eyes. It is what enables us to do what we do.  Part of creativity is often about connecting two seemingly disparate ideas into a new whole.  As artists we need to work through that transformative stage every time we create, leaving the familiar to enter something new. 

Download liminality presentation

Transgressing the Law

by Susan Weinberg

Haleluyahs filled the room as our session began with a song. Drawn from  Psalm 148:1-6, these lyrics ended with an unusual line Chok natan v'lo ya'avor.   Chok natan means the law as given. V'la ya'avor, but it can't be transgressed.

Or as the link translates: He hath also established them for ever and ever; He hath made a decree which shall not be transgressed.  "What does that mean?" asked the rabbi.  In each of our sessions, I always look for the connection to our theme, my personal search for "find Outside-Inside", the "find Waldo" equivalent. Sometimes I have to dig a bit with the ah-ha only coming as I write. This seemed to address it up front, a discussion on boundary transgressions.

Rabbi Davis reminisced about when he was interviewed for his current post.  He was asked,"What is your Chok ya'avor." What is your bottom line?  What won't you do?

"Is there a time when it is OK to transgress the law?" he asked.

We replied...
   To save a life
   An issue of conscience
   When the law is wrong (eg. Jim Crow laws)
   To survive

He noted that there is a hierarchy of laws and Torah law has priority over rabbis' laws.  Additionally it is possible to violate a law intentionally, by accident, or because one didn't know that there was such a law. Circumstances can matter.

Having established that some transgressions may be acceptable despite Chok ya'avor, we moved into a discussion of Ruth, both her genealogy and geography. In the handout (Ruth1) we turned to Ruth 1:1-6.  In brief, Elimelech married Naomi and they had two sons, the sons married and then all of the men died leaving Naomi with her two daughters-in-law
Ruth and Orpah. Now the salient part of this is that both Ruth
and Orpah were Moabite women.

The Moabites, as their name implies, are descendants of Moab who was a child of Lot and his eldest daughter.  The Ammonites descended from Lot's incest with his younger daughter. We turned to Genesis 19:30-38 where we find that after Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt and Sodom and  Gomorrah were destroyed, Lot and his daughters became cave dwellers, certain that they were the only ones left on earth. Out of that fear, his daughters sought to perpetuate the human race by laying with their father. You can find both the lands associated with the two sons, Moab and Ammon, on the maps of the region.

Where else do the Moabites appear? Well as the children of Israel traveled to Moab, the king of Moab was frightened of their large numbers.  He sought to have a curse put upon them Numbers 22:7.

God had cautioned the Israelites not to mess with either the Moabites (Deut: 2: 8-9) or the Ammonites as their land was to go to the descendants of Lot.

And then we come to Deut 23:4-7 
which instructs us that the Moabites and Ammonites cannot be admitted to the congregation of the Lord.  And why is this?  They weren't good hosts.  They failed to offer the Israelites food and drink when they traversed their land.  Even though the Israelites had plenty of manna, the test is not want, but hosting generously. In addition they went so far as to curse them which turned into a bit of a boomerang with God turning it into a blessing instead.  The punishment is quite harsh with ten generations suffering under this restriction.  And then lo and behold, along comes Ruth, a Moabite.  Not only is she a Moabite, but she ultimately becomes the great-grandmother of David. How does this come to pass after the Moabites are persona non-grata?

Rashi notes while a Moabite and Ammonite are banned, it says nothing of a Moabitess or an Ammonitess.  A more contemporary view is proposed by Lesleigh Stahlberg (Ruth2 handout) in which he considers this story as supporting the embrace of same-sex marriage over strict law abidance. The marriage of Ruth and Boaz, celebrated by the community and God, may mean that this is a biblical precedent for  "communal transgression of a law in the name of love."

The upshot of this discussion is that not all rules are written in stone, despite those two tablets that were. When they are and when they aren't was not always apparent.

Kathe Kollwitz - Woman With Dead Child 1903 (PD-Art-70)

Following this discussion Jan Rubenstein took us into an exploration of work by Kathe Kollwitz and Roger Shimomura.  Kollwitz focused on themes of hunger, poverty and war.  She was an expressionist and the first woman admitted to the Prussian Academy of Arts. Under the Nazis her work was banned and she was unable to exhibit.  War was a central experience in her life and her art, losing both a child and a grandchild to it.  She served as the moral conscience to Germany. Jan shared many of her woodcuts with several from her war series as well as etchings like the very powerful Woman With Dead Child where the woman's body merges with her child.  A museum of Kollwitz's work now exists in Berlin.

Roger Shimomura was born in 1939.  His family was moved from Seattle to the Japanese internment camps in Washington and Idaho and were there from 1941-43.  He was influenced by Warhol and a show recently ended at Augsburg College titled Mistaken Identity.  The name references the identity that was placed upon him, perceived as a non-American, despite being born an American.  A large assortment of his work can be found at the Greg Kucera Gallery. Some is cartoon-like while other work reflects traditional Japanese imagery with a twist that speaks to his experience.  I especially liked one of a young child on a tricycle, the age that he would have been during his internment. that says through barbed wire "Our American eyes, aslant like Kamikazi, blink in disbelief as barbed wire encircles and machine guns take aim."

Jan closed by offering us a source at MOMA if we would like more information on printmaking.


The last part of our session was led by Aaron Greenberg/Silver who currently has a show of papercuts that make use of words at the Tychman Shapiro Gallery.  Aaron grew up in New Jersey and lived in New York, but has been in Minneapolis for the past eight years. He has worked in watercolor, clay, prints, metal sculpture and for the past five years, papercuts. He prefers the ease and accessibility of this medium. Aaron shared a number of his works with us.  Often his inspiration comes from words that he hears in synagogue.  The show is up through March 26th.