The Shade of Wings

by Susan Weinberg

We all face times when life feels overwhelming. It is in these times of brokenness when many turn to prayer. Others may turn inward with meditation or creative acts. Our topic in this discussion was prayer, but we agreed to hold on an important underlying question: “Does the act of prayer require you to believe in God?” So, hold that thought and grab on to the concept of prayer wherever it feels meaningful to you. In small groups we spoke of finding prayerfulness in communal activity, in movement and in the outdoors. 

The Siddur, the Jewish prayerbook, became our sourcebook for this discussion as well as the work of both visual and musical artists. We began our discussion with Lab Artist Rani Halpern presenting on her recent work for the Interfaith Artists Circle on the theme of Meditation on Visual Prayer. 

Prayers. . . early stage - R.Halpern

Rani used the prayer from the morning service as her jumping off point for this visual midrash. This prayer addresses the body and soul, the gift of creation and healing. While visually beautiful, Rani’s work also contains layers of meaning, both literally and figuratively. She spoke of how the repetition of the lettering became a kind of meditation. She didn’t want it clearly enunciated, but rather a mumble as group prayers often are. She chose not to be representational as it felt too concrete for the soul and chose to make the letters more abstract in form. The design of her piece is layered and floating, some background, some foreground, both those private prayers of the heart and those offered more publicly. Rani used the cut-out letters floating against the letters written with an acrylic brush marker. It was pointed out that the way in which it was created also represented the progression of a day.

 

Rimon co-sponsored a virtual artist salon at the Sacred Arts Festival at the University of St. Thomas which also recorded comments on this work. You can find the presentation of three artists, one of which is Rani. All are well worth listening to, but you can specifically find Rani’s work beginning at 22 minutes.

Prayers of the Soul - Rani Halpern

Rani’s was a prayer with both words and visuals. We next turned to wordless prayer in the form of a nigun. A nigun is a wordless melody, a repetition of nonsense words. Sometimes it is slow and meditative, other times fast and jubilant. The nigun grew out of Hassidic tradition. It is a prayer for those times when we lack the words to express what we are going through. An example of a nigun is represented in this short clip by Joey Weisenberg who performs Revelation.

We examined some of the other significant prayers in Jewish tradition and I was struck by the poetry of them (for the full prayers go to handout-Sourcesheet for April). The Hashkevenu is a prayer that seeks peace when afraid. It is said in the evening in communal prayer or before one goes to sleep. The Hebrew contains the repetition of the sound of the Shin. Shh . . . shh . . .shh . . , it calms us into sleep. Hide us in the shade of your wings it urges. Shhh. . .

Prayer even leads us into the present as Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu (Chief Rabbi of Safed) offers a new prayer of thanks for imbuing humankind with the knowledge and understanding to create a vaccine. And when do you say this prayer? Why before you get the vaccine of course. Certainly a time of thanks.

We closed the lab with a quote shared by Robyn. "We don't see things the way they are, we see them the way we are!" (attributed to the Talmud). Our prayers come filtered through the lens through which we see the world. And yet, that lens is not immutable. The very act of prayer encourages us to view the world through a lens of gratitude.

Rolling Light Away From Darkness

At our recent Artists' Lab we turned our attention to the prayer book, the Siddur, to explore the use of light as both metaphor and specific reference.  I am often drawn in by the poetry of the prayer book. I have been known to copy down passages struck by the sheer poetry.  This exploration again reminded me of that impulse.  To give you a flavor, here is the passage from the Sheharit-B'rakhot, Hakol yadukah.

All exalt You, Creator of all. God who daily opens the gates of the heavens, the casements of  the eastern sky- bringing forth the sun from its dwelling place, the moon from its abode, illumining the whole world and its inhabitants whom you created with mercy.  You illumine the earth and its creatures with mercy.

We were asked whether the passage speaks of light literally or metaphorically.  I loved the metaphor of illumining with mercy.  I pictured windows thrown open emitting a yellow-white blinding light.

Bless us our Creator, one and all, with Your light, for You have given us by that light the guide to a life filled with generosity and contentment, kindness and well-being, and peace.

Here we speak of light as offering precepts by which to live, perhaps harkening back to the burning bush and its light that accompanied the bestowing of the Ten Commandments,

And from the evening service we recite this prayer...Praised are you Adonai our God who rules the universe.  Your word bringing the evening dusk. You open with wisdom the gates of dawn, design the day with wondrous skill, set out the succession of seasons, and arrange the stars in the sky according to Your will.  You create day and night, rolling light away from darkness and darkness away from light. Praised are you Adonai, for each evening's dusk.

Here God is the Creator of light, but also darkness and we give thanks for each in their interdependence.  Judaism is a religion that is organized around light or its absence, expressed in both morning and evening prayers and the Havdallah ceremony that accompanies the end of Shabbat.  In fact, the Jewish day runs from sundown to sundown.

After this exploration we attempted a somewhat unsuccessful experiment with bouncing a light from mirror to mirror.  Failing in our attempt we shifted to a drawing exercise using charcoal and a variety of erasers, first creating darkness and then removing it, rolling darkness away from light to create emergent imagery. Faces and hands smudged with charcoal we concluded our evening and emerged into the darkness of our cold Minnesota night.

To view information on lab artists and lab discussion links and handouts, please go to theJewish Artists' Laboratory website.

*The Jewish Artists’ Laboratory is an arts initiative through the Sabes Jewish Community Center featuring 25 artists exploring the theme of Light through study and art making. The project is funded through The Covenant Foundation and similar projects are being done in both Milwaukee and Madison. Artists explore how the theme of Light is relevant to Jews and non-Jews, to religious and non-religious, to the community and to the individual, to the artist and the non-artist.