Dedicated to the memory of my Mom, whose first Yahrtzeit is 19 Av
A week ago, my wife got the brilliant idea to visit the Yaakov Agam Museum in Rishon l'Tzion. Agam was born in Rishon nearly 100 years ago, to a Chasidishe family; his father was a מקובל (Kabbalist). Agam still regularly visits the museum.
Our visit was magical. The docent explained that, being religious, the budding artist refused to depict human forms; and so, with his knowledge of Kabbalah, he turned to geometry of the physical world to depict religious themes. After finishing the Betzalel Art School in 1948, his teachers encouraged him to study art in Europe. By 1951, he was back in Israel (visiting); from then on, his career skyrocketed.
Our guide explained that Agam's art starts with a point, then a line. To give his work three dimensions, Agam gives depth with raised "triangles" of tile. Having two sides facing outward, the "tiles" provide not only depth, but also differing perspective, depending on from which direction one views the tiles. Some sculptures provide a fourth dimension: motion, or TIME, as in one creation that is made of metal tubing, looks like a loom, and when one arm is lightly moved by the viewer's finger, the whole apparatus moves, loom-like.
We started with one picture/sculpture, which from one side, is all areas of light colors (yellows, light pinks and greens), in irregular shapes. That is viewing from the left side of the viewer. From the right, one sees only squares and rectangles, in dark colors: black, blue, and gray. The docent asked the crowd if anyone had any idea what this represented. Nobody did. She then explained: "The left side is Agam's depiction of the צד נקבות, the Female and the female side of Creation. Woman provides Life, and color to Creation. Note the small dark gray square in the middle of her side of this picture: it is her masculine side, for she was taken from Adam's rib."
"The other, dark side is the masculine side of Creation: men are totally focused on one goal at a time, with resolve that admits none of the lighter colors of Life."
I noted to the guide: "It's like the 50's depiction of a nerd: Man is a Square." Everyone laughed.
However, this is no laughing matter. In his genius, Agam was depicting deep Kabbalistic thought. For last Shabbat was the 15th of Av, traditional day in which "the girls went out to dance in the fields, and the boys chose their brides"(Taanit 26b and 30b- 31a). The Bnei Yissachar comments on this, quoting profound teachings of his Rebbe, the Rebbe of Medzhybizh, one of the early founders of Chassidut. Amazingly, he too starts with the point, then the line. He notes that the two ends of the line don't meet, and they represent: the Female side of Creation on the left, and the Male side on the right!
Yet the two sides DO meet: when one bends to two ends together to form a circle; and the circle represents the DANCE of Tu (15) B'Av ! After the Destruction and Aveilut (Mourning) of Tisha (9) B'Av, the 15th of Av ushers a period of exuberant Life, of colored garments (see Gemara Ta'anit) and Dance. As King David said: "הפכת מספדי למחול לי" - You, Lord, changed my Mourning into exuberant Dance", providing new opportunities for Life (Psalms 30,13).
This idea of the Bnei Yissachar becomes even more important in light of the two parshiot (Torah readings) of last and this week, Vetchanan and Ekev. Moshe Rabbeinu, Moses, is admonishing the people of Israel for making a Golden Calf (Eigel) after having reached the spiritual heights of receiving the Torah at Sinai. And what bothered Moshe about the Eigel was: וירא את העגל ומחולות (Exodus 32,19 ) - he saw the Calf and the DANCING around it.
Rav Matis Weinberg explains that Moses was less bothered by the idol than by the mecholot (Dancing): those stupid squares (of Agam), the men (not one woman) participated in this folly- and they had formed a closed circle of dance around the idol. The men were totally focused around this projection of their own thought; and so Moses knew that they were doomed. Without the closed-minded masculine focus about a singular idea, Moshe R. knew he could save the fools; but forming a circle of dance around their idea (Calf- or Zeus, or Communism, or whatever idiocy of the times) Moshe knew that they had determined their own deaths.
Back to Agam: there is one more aspect of the Book of Devarim (Deuteronomy). This is Moses' farewell, as he is not allowed to enter the Holy Land. He pleads with the Almighty in last week's parsha (V'etchanan), but to no avail: Moses will stay in the Desert, with the males( there we go again) that he led out of Egypt( the women WILL go in). Thus we see two Covenants in Sefer Devarim: ברית הארץ וברית התורה - the Covenant over the Torah, and the Covenant over the Land of Israel. Interestingly, last week, Moshe commands the Jews to never add or subtract any of the commands of the Torah לא תוסיף, ולא תגרע ) ) .
Moses reminds the Jews that they SAW the words of Torah that the Lord spoke to them (Exodus 20,14), and so they forget any of what they saw at the price of their lives (Deuteronomy 4,9). In short, one can SEE a whole picture, in one glance; but audio learning is linear, and cannot, at one fell swoop, include an entire "picture" (Rav Matis Weinberg). Thus, if one leaves out one detail, one visual dot, of an Agam, or a Rembrandt, it is no longer an authentic Agam or Rembrandt. Leave one Mitzvah (commandment) out of the Torah, and it's no longer the real thing; it becomes Karaism, Reformism, Conservatism, etc.- but not Torah.
The lesson of Moshe's speech in Deuteronomy is that the Covenant over the Land is the equivalent of that of the Torah; i.e., leave out one "dot" of Eretz Yisrael (the Holy Land), and you violate that Covenant.
Exactly twenty years ago this week, PM Ariel Sharon and our Leftists violated that Covenant, and with the Hitnatkut (eviction of 8,800 Jews from Gush Katif and the Shomron) deleted important Jewish dots from the map of the Holy Land.
With this present war, we have the chance to right that wrong. We must pressure our PM to bring those dots of the Land of Israel back into the State of Israel.
לעילוי נשמת אמי, פערל יוכבד בת ר' אברהם
דור שביעי צאצאה של החוזה מלובלין