Image of the Week: Jeremiah
© D. Yael Bernhard
"Before I created you in the womb . . . I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet of the nations." So says the voice of God in the beginning of the Book of Jeremiah.
I love the idea of predestined fate. Not fixed, as in predetermined – but fluid, as in the planting of a seed. From before birth, Jeremiah was given a special role to play. How he played it was up to him. As a prophet in times of intense upheaval, he paid a heavy price for that gift. Why is his story so intriguing?
The feeling of being put on earth for a reason is something no one can explain, but many have felt. These mysterious instincts are powerful enough to shape our lives. As an artist, I feel chosen to pursue a creative destiny. When I first came to the Catskills, I knew right away I would live here. When we meet certain people, we feel we've known them for a long time. When something happens by coincidence, we sense it was "meant to be." In The Orchard, a work of historical fiction about the great Rabbi Akiva who lived from the end of the 1st century to the year 135 CE – the leader of the sages proclaims that all is predestined – yet we have free will. This paradox recurs as "literary fate" throughout the ages, from Sophocles' King Oedipus to Shakespeare's Macbeth, Dicken's Tale of Two Cities, Wilde's Importance of Being Ernest and even Lois Lowry's The Giver.
And surely it was written in the stars that Robert Redford would play the iconic Jeremiah Johnson in the 1972 film directed by Sydney Pollack. Why was that mid-1800s mountain man given that name?
Thus my intrigue is an archetypal one – a common thread of the human imagination that weaves through time and place. Fate is a fertile subject for art – but not an easy one to represent visually. I grabbed onto the image suggested in the passage – Jeremiah in the womb – not as a baby, but as a predestined soul. The womb in which he forms is not his mother's womb, but the hands of God, cradling him in light, fashioning him for a purpose. I thought of the fingers like a deck of cards – for this is the hand that the young prophet, despite his doubts, was dealt. It reminds me of a quote by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: "The spiritual life consists of how you deal with what you've been dealt."
This is one of three illustrations I've done of Jeremiah. While working on one of them, I also learned to sing the passage in Haftarah tropes – a Hebrew cantillation system that delivers the passage in a haunting, minor melody. It was a pleasure to practice and a privilege and honor to sing in synagogue.
Much of my art feels predestined, though I cannot justify, prove, or explain it. Sometimes a painting pours of out of me that's instantly familiar, as if I've seen it all my life. Sometimes an image unfolds with a will of its own, as if it cannot be otherwise. It's my fate to wrestle with artistic challenges – a process I surrendered to long ago, and trust completely. May I be a humble tool in the hand of my Creator.
Wishing you a good and fertile week.
D Yael Bernhard