Image of the Week: Sh'ma
© D. Yael Bernhard
Revisioned here through the lens of the Covid-19 pandemic is a very old concept: the idea that all concepts of God are one, expressed in the central prayer of Judaism known as the Sh'ma. These patchwork people are reciting the prayer both in unison and separately, for each individual occupies both a shared experience, brought together with others as images on a computer screen, and a very personal mindset. Similarly, each person's concept of God is both collective and individual, for the very nature of a universal, omnipresent, eternal Creator is both infinitely varied and common to all. Every Jew knows the Sh'ma, yet each person's interpretation of it may be different. That we are free to interpret, and that our interpretations are free to evolve, is one of the blessings of Judaism.
My interpretive collage began with assorted scraps of rice paper and birchbark, which I pieced together to a create a rather crude surface. Before I started painting, I had a fundamental decision to make: should I show the people in profile, as seen in a synagogue when looking sideways at congregants sitting in one's row of seats – or should I show the fronts of all the faces, as seen in an online service, with everyone facing their computer screen? It felt strange to see people looking toward me, as the Sh'ma is recited in a private space where others do not tread. Many people close their eyes or cover their faces. So I chose to draw profiles, as if seeing these people to my left or my right, in person. If only symbolically, I wanted to bring them back together, on a handmade, textured, organic and flawed surface – a metaphor for human existence in our messy, organic world. In a medley of human interaction, these faces share the sound waves that carry the Sh'ma to all ears – not through a microphone and a speaker, but through the air we breathe. For we have always breathed together in reciting the Sh'ma, with young and old voices blending together in a river of sound. This ancient prayer has endured for so long, through so much adversity, whispered in barracks and caves, in trenches and hospitals, in triumph and despair – surely it will outlive this temporary fragmentation, too.
The three Hebrew letters that make up the word Sh'ma – ש מ ע – are scattered across the collage from right to left, both in print and script, floating separately or clinging together, changing as they move through different spaces. I tried to create an overarching harmony that brings the people together. They are separate, yet together – like us.
Sh'ma is the last image in The Jewish Eye 5782 Calendar of Art, available in my webstore and on Amazon.
You can view the entire calendar here.
Rosh Hashanah begins on Monday evening at sundown. To all my Jewish readers – Shana Tovah u'metukah – a good and sweet New Year!
D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
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