Image of the Week: The Blooming of Aaron's Staff
© D. Yael Bernhard
The Blooming of Aaron's Staff was one of several created for a recent college course I took in Italian Renaissance Art History. It's also the image for July 2022 in my new Jewish Eye calendar of art. The painting illustrates one of my favorite stories from the Torah, or Hebrew Bible. It's the story of Korach, who leads an uprising against Moses, the chosen leader of the Israelites who have only recently been liberated from slavery in Egypt. As they make their way across the Sinai desert toward the Promised Land, competition and unrest erupt among them. Hungry for power, young Korach and his cohorts stage a bold rebellion, incurring the wrath of God and sealing their doom. A crack opens in the earth and swallows the rebels alive.
The Israelite people are dumbstruck. On the surface, this punishment seems rather severe, giving rise to God's reputation as harsh and punitive. Yet as always in the Torah, a deeper level exists in which the story may be looked at through a different lens, as if interpreting a dream. In a brilliant commentary, Rabbi Arthur Waskow suggests the earth does not devour Korach in death, but enfolds him in her nourishing embrace, taking him back for further gestation – for Korach is not complete, and his thinking not mature enough to be part of a tribe liberated for a higher purpose: to mold of these bedraggled slaves a morally just, self-governing society.
After a time – greatly condensed, as time often is in ancient spiritual literature – life re-emerges from the earth, bursting forth as living blossoms on the seemingly inanimate staff of Aaron. As high priest and brother of Moses, Aaron acts as ritual attendant in the Tabernacle, or traveling sanctuary of God. Amazed, he reaches up to touch the miraculous flowers – a sign that life keeps going as the new bursts forth from the old.
In keeping with Renaissance art, I tried to endow Aaron with human expression. His robes are deep blue and vibrant orange – popular colors in 15th century Italy. His face is a mixture of grief, amazement, and budding hope. Behind him, the past is depicted to his left in two grieving women standing at the edge of the cracked earth; to his right, peace is restored in the future as a shepherd tends his sheep. Beyond that, the distant landscape is rendered in Renaissance style, in a palette of ochres and pale, chalky blue.
The story of Korach is a cautionary tale that has endured for over two millennia. The moral of the story: those who lust for power are unfit to lead. Moses, who wishes only to unburden himself of too much responsibility, is chosen partly for his very lack of desire to lead. Yet lead he does, until the day he dies.
I loved revisioning this story in the style of Renaissance art!
The Jewish Eye 5782/2022 Calendar of Art is available in my webstore and on Amazon. You can view the entire calendar here. Buy two or more calendars from my webstore, and I'll send you a free Shana Tova (Happy New Year in Hebrew) card. If you buy it on Amazon, please consider writing a review!
A good week to all –
D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
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