The Jewish Year art collection: Inner Lights

Purim. The Strength of Devotion. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, pigments, Luminance Caran d’Ache on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 2021-2026. Original: private collection, Finland.

Purim is a gift to the Jewish people historically, a celebration of this gift of salvation that has become an organic part of Jewish tradition throughout the centuries. There are many aspects in the Purim miracle that can be analysed in depth. It is an incredibly rich and multi-sided unique episode in history that has become the source of inspiration for many generations. Among these many aspects of Purim, the devotion of Esther is one of the cornerstones of our victory. What can a human being, a woman, not a soldier, do in order to save her people? To save them en masse from mortal danger that if succeeds could preclude the fate of an entire people for generations ahead? The brave heart can resist evil, and when it is done consciously, it can also help a person to be inventive in the ways of salvation, with the Creator’s help. Esther has become not only an indisputable heroine of the Jewish people forever, but she also has become a symbol for this devoted and resourceful personality that sets up the example to follow. When circumstances are as bleak as they were back in the city of Shushan in the 5th century BCE, and that often tends to happen throughout the Jewish history, there appeared people whose devotion is of Esther's kind. And that rose which, in our tradition, is associated with Esther is steady and determinedly shows its real colour amidst the bleakest clouds on the Jewish horizon. And this colour, its strength and meaning very often show us the way out. Towards the light.

Pesach. The Presence. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, pigments, Luminance Caran d’Ache on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 2024-2026. Original: private collection, Finland.

Pesach is one of the most meaningful landmarks in our annual calendar, if not the most meaningful one. The self-determination of a human being and his or her choice for freedom, an ultimate choice for life, not mere existence in given circumstances. It is not without reason that the new biblical and religious Jewish year starts in Nissan, the month when Pesach occurred, when the Jewish people, at least part of them, decided to break out for freedom, despite all obstacles, difficulties, and the huge unknown they were facing and the long way, full of hurdles, towards it. What was the most essential element during the Pesach events? I asked myself while working on the collection. There were so many elements that were special and characteristic. But the one without which Pesach would not happen, was the Presence of the Creator at the pivotal episode of Jewish history and the very moment a conglomeration of people formed a nation. This Presence was perceived and felt in a different way by different people then and ever since, and with different degrees of conviction. But without this Presence, the Pesach events, cardinal in Jewish history, simply would not have happened, nor would they have succeeded.

Shavuot. The Heaven’s Window. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, pigments, Luminance Caran d’Ache on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 2022-2026.

From a known narrative of Shavuot we know, that during this special holiday, the Heaven’s window opens at midnight for our innermost most prayers and thoughts to be heard directly in the rarest communication with He Who is on High, the second time in a year after the Neila prayer at the end of the Yom Kippur. This unique possibility to address the Creator personally at certain hour of Shavuot night has its own tonality, different from the one addressed during Neila. Shavuot is a climax of the 49-day process starting annually with Pesach, when an observant person is supposed to grow, or at least to reminisce the essence of the Omer-counting period that symbolises the transformation of an observant Jewish person’s inner world from a physical liberation that happened on Pesach to the spiritual emboldening expected to come on Shavuot. That’s why the Creator, the High Power, helps those who are striving to travel this way or those who are conscious of it and would like to pay tribute to this beautiful and actually very logical tradition, to make it meaningful and to reward us with the Heaven’s open window at e certain hour of the certain night, once a year, to support our effort.

Yom Yerushalaim. The Day of Jerusalem. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, pigments, Luminance Caran d’Ache, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 2019-2026. Original: Permanent Art Collection, Municipality of Jerusalem, Israel.

Everything is different in this unique place. Its air, its space, its light. Its spirit, its memory, its history. Its promise which never fails anyone. Its magnetism and its charm. Its beauty and its attraction. Its ancient stones and its modern bridges. I always was in solidarity with the concept of Jerusalem as a centre of the world in the medieval mappa mundi, ancient geography maps, and with the metaphorical meaning of this concept as well. It is just the state of things .

And yet, Jerusalem is quite different and very specific for each of those who love it, because as any other place on the earth, the perception of Jerusalem is absolutely individual and highly personified. It was like that for any writer, poet, and artist who featured the many images of Jerusalem in their creations. When we annually celebrate Yom Jerushalaim, we celebrate our love to the light of our origin and the humanist purpose of it, both of which have been concentrated on every metre of Jerusalem in a high proportion. The highest on the planet, actually.

Tu B’Av. The Day of Love. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, pigments, Luminance Caran d’Ache on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 2023-2026. Original: Private collection, Vienna, Austria.