Sandi Knell Tamny. Artist, Engineer, Industrial Designer

Transcription

1 Sandi Knell Tamny Artist, Engineer, Industrial Designer My assignment tonight was to tell the congregation what the V ahvta means to me. I asked Rabbi Koster, two weeks ago while we were walking home from Friday night services, if there were any restrictions on what I could say. She seemed surprised by my question. I didn t want to say anything that she would consider inappropriate. But it seems that our beliefs are not that far apart. I have never seen G-d as a little guy sitting on a cloud and watching over us. I believe that what we call G-d is a universal energy that is divided up so that a little piece of this energy is a part of each and every living being. So that when we look to G-d, what we are doing is looking within ourselves for the answer, because we are responsible for being the best little bit of energy we are able to be. When we sit in this sanctuary on a Friday night and sing and pray as one unit, the power of this energy is magnified exponentially. The translation of the V Ahavta reads: You shall love the Lord your G-d with all your mind, with all your strength, with all your being. Set these words, which I command you this day, upon your heart. Teach them faithfully to your children; speak of them in your home and on your way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Bind them for a sign upon your hand; let them be a symbol before your eyes; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates. Be mindful of all My Mitzvot, and do them; so shall you consecrate yourselves to your G-d. I, the Lord, am your G-d who led you out of Egypt to be your G-d; I, the Lord, am your G-d. I feel that the V ahavta or should I say the Sh ma and the V Ahavta is the foundation of the Jewish tradition. Other than the ten commandments, no prayer says more about what our responsibility is as a Jew. The Sh ma and V ahavta are housed in tefillin. They are on the Kosher Scroll inside the mezuzah. I ll be speaking more about the latter in a minute. For the past 30 years, my art has focused on my Jewish background, my family history, my interest in Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalah. I have been reading about the Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism for all these years and I feel that I am barely scratching the surface. While reading books like Jewish Magic and Superstition, I started my long journey into learning about charms, amulets and talismen. I made amulets that were ink, watercolor and gold leaf some were made from fused glass, some from glass beads and some made out of fabric with embellishments that could be worn or placed on a shelf as a small sculpture. Most were inspired by illustrations of ancient amulets some that had imagery but most with just text and the imagery was in my head. I don t have a clue as to how many I made and am still making because the same text leads to many visions. In ancient times, amulets were used for everything to help a woman conceive to help her carry to term to help with an easy and safe delivery 1

2 to keep the mother and child safe to enhance a spiritual connection - to protect a soldier in battle to help to heal to protect from illness name a situation, and there was an amulet to help. In all the years that I have been studying this subject, I have never found an amulet to be used in a negative way. Years ago, I made an amulet using the V Ahavta as its focus. I did a version of that amulet as part of my presentation this evening, and I will talk about that after I tell you about the most intensive work that I ve done using the V Ahavta. In 2000, the Spertus Museum in Chicago announced that the subject of their next International Judaica Competition would be the mezuzah. I was very intrigued and decided to compete. When doing my research something I usually do for months before putting the first mark on a piece of paper, I came to realize that the mezuzah is NOT an amulet not put on your doorpost to bring good fortune to your home. I believe the mezuzah is on the door to remind us what our place is in the world as we leave our home, and to remind us what our place is in our home when we return. I knew that there would be mezuzot in glass many in metal and I didn t see myself competing with jewelers, which is interesting because much later I started making jewelry. I decided to take the text literally and I carved a doorpost. I took a piece of clear maple 12 wide 2 thick and 81 tall and carved the entire Sh ma and the V ahavta on its surface in Babylonian text along with imagery that I had developed through the years doing amulets. Then I thought about the fact that the V Ahavta was on the surface and not on a scroll maybe the judges wouldn t consider this a viable mezuzah so I carved a niche in the back, put in a kosher scroll and put a brass plate over it. I told my husband as I was carving this piece, that I had a good chance of not getting into the show because of the scale of the work the judges always want to have a cohesive show but if I did get accepted, that I had a really good chance of winning first prize. As I thought, almost all of the many thousands of mezuzot that had been entered from all over the world, were small. The initial judging was by slides. I was notified that I had made the show almost a year before the opening then the actual piece had to be sent for the final judging. I learned 9 months before the show was to open that I had won first prize, but was not allowed to tell anyone but my immediate family. The piece is now in the permanent collection of the Yeshiva University Museum. I would hope that when it is brought out to display that I can show it to all of you in person. I wanted to print a photo full size so you could get an idea of the scale of the piece because the photo is of me, standing next to the mezuzah and it towers over me it s close to 7 feet tall. I brought some images of the piece if anyone is interested in seeing it and, by the way, it s entitled Inscribe It On The Doorposts Of Your House. But now I have to talk about the piece that I made for this evening. The piece is 12 square a 4 sided figure of watercolor, ink and gold leaf, constructed of Celtic Interlace. This amulet, to me, shows what the V Ahavta means to me. The number 4 is representative of stability and a firm foundation, but also can stand for the Elemental Powers 2

3 earth, air, wind and fire; the Cardinal Points north, south, east and west; the Four Seasons Summer, Winter, Fall and Spring; and the Four Matriarchs Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah. The interweaving of the piece shows that life is not a smooth path - but has many ins and outs the piece has symmetry to show it all balances out in the end whether in this lifetime or the next lifetime. That a little hint as to my other beliefs. The amulet is all about universality - and the colors in the piece are also very important. Green is for physical healing; Blue is for spiritual healing; Red, although thought by many to be attached to the devil, is actually ANTI- DEMONIC a protection from evil; Purple is the vibration of religious devotion and lastly, Yellow is the color of life s energy force and stimulates clear thinking. That s a lot of power in one little amulet but here it is. I very much enjoyed making this work my work tends to be very labor intensive I tend to do things that seemed like a really good idea at the time and I have keep telling myself that as I am plugging my way through the work. I would like very much to present this amulet to the Village Temple. Hopefully, it will be in a place that will benefit anyone that has the chance to see it. Shabbat Shalom. 3

4 [Sandi s extraordinary amulet is on display in The Village Temple social hall] 4

5 Bill Abrams President, TrickleUp, an international non-profit dedicated to giving the ultrapoor the first steps out of poverty I estimate that I ve said the V ahavta 1,200-1,500 times in my life. But it was always by rote. The Prayer Project has forced me to think really think! study, and reflect about this prayer for the past 6 months. I encourage all of you to volunteer for the Prayer Project next year. 5

6 I will look at this prayer, which you can find on page 22, through 3 lenses: Architecture: Where this prayer fits into the liturgy and our lives is especially interesting. Content: What are the words telling us? What was the context when the V ahavta was written? Personal meaning: Some reflections on what this prayer means to me and an association it stimulated for me. Architecture: A very important aspect of this prayer is that, in addition to being in your prayer book, it s on the little scroll inside a mezuzah. You pass by it every time you leave your home and every time you enter assuming you have a mezuzah at home, as I hope all of you do. Another structural aspect of V ahavta that I hadn t realized is that it actually is part of the shema. It s the second half but, because we physically divide them in our service, I never realized that. For those who care about such things, the origins of V ahavta are in Deuteronomy and Numbers. See me after services if you want more on that front What intrigued me most about V ahavta as I began to really analyze it was that it s mostly an instruction manual for the first sentence: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your might. What follows are the rules for the prayer itself. Keep them in your heart, teach them to your children, talk about them, repeat them when you wake up and go to sleep, bind them for a sign upon your hand and keep them as frontlets before your eyes, and write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates. This is a beautifully clear and concise instruction manual a welcome relief from most instructions manuals you see. Some parts may be a bit dated or metaphorical or not followed by reform Jews, but it still feels pretty relevant and practical in The other structural note on V ahavta is that there s another version two pages later that is mostly the same but adds some important elaboration on what you can expect if you follow it good things and what if not a grim hellfire and brimstone consequence. The words themselves: Love the Lord your God : Remember, this was a time when there were competing gods. Today, we can think of the false gods money, fame, various forms of pleasure-seeking that compete with God for some people. With all your heart : When this was written, people tended to believe that heart was responsible for what we today know is your brain s job. With all your soul : As we d say today: ALL IN. With all your might : They were serious about this commandment. It meant you might have to spend money, sacrifice assets and even in some cases give up your life to truly love God. As we all know, Jews ever since have had to do just that to defend our faith. 6

7 What does the V ahavta mean to me personally? For one thing, I ll never walk by my mezuzah without thinking about V ahavta and tonight. It also strikes me a very powerful message for life. A message of constant focus on my goals and values the North Star that I try to navigate life by. Think of them when I wake up and go to sleep, teach them to my children, etc. I also see V ahavta as a message of persistence and resilience. This prayer says that living a good life and loving God are a 7x24 job. You can never give up. You never get time off. You have to be ready and determined to climb over every obstacle. Which brings me to Kontyare [KON-TI-R-A] Nopoko Marie. Marie lives in the West African nation of Burkina Faso, which some of you may have learned as Upper Volta back in high school geography. Her home is in a small rural village called Bouboulou. I met Marie in November 2012 as part of my job at a nonprofit called Trickle Up. We help women in Africa, India and Central America escape profound poverty by helping them start businesses, save money, gain skills and confidence. Once or twice a year, I travel to remote rural villages to see our work and it is in some ways a journey back in time. Closer to Biblical times than our own. Villages without electricity or running water. Most people engaging in farming or small trading mostly pre-industrial society. Real threats of famine, drought, children dying of preventable diseases events we think about in a literary, Biblical sense because they really aren t risks we have to face. When I met Marie, I asked her what her goals were when she started in the Trickle Up program. She wanted to start a small business selling things in her village markets items like basic foodstuffs and small household items that she would buy at a larger market in a town that was about a three-hour walk away. Three times a week she would start out before dawn to walk to the town, acquire her inventory, and then walk back three hours with her goods in a basket on her head. She figured she could earn $10-$20 a week in profit, which would mean a great deal to her family. She also had a dream: to save enough money within a year to buy a second-hand bicycle. Then she could get to market much faster, with far less physical hardship, and a bicycle would enable her to carry more inventory and increase her profits. A bicycle would cost $80. Things were going very well for Marie. There were customers at her market stand, she earned more money for food for her family, and she was saving about $1.50 a week and was on track for her goal of buying that bicycle. Then her husband took ill with guinea worm, a painful, debilitating parasite that left him unable to work in their small field or as a laborer on other farms. Suddenly, Marie had to drain her savings to feed the family and pay her husband s medical bills. 7

8 I was shaken by her story and asked her what she was going to do. What could I do?, she asked me. My husband got better, thank God, and I just had to start over with saving for that bicycle. It will take me longer than I d planned but I m going to reach my goal. Hers is a V ahvta story to me. Her focus on her goals and what mattered most to her: making a better life for her children. Her determination to overcome adversity. Her persistence and resilience. Her working on her goal 7x24. All your heart, all your soul, all your might is phrase that definitely fits for Marie. One postscript to Marie s story: In addition to being a story of tremendous persistence and resilience, it s also a disability story especially timely for us during Jewish Disability Awareness Month. It is a vivid example of the fact that disabilities usually affect a whole family, not just one individual. No doubt many of us here tonight could share a personal story of how your life was affected, directly or indirectly, by someone you love or know with a disability. The World Health Organization estimates that one billion people (one seventh of the planet) are directly affected by disability. Many more when you add in the ripple effects of a disability on family and friends. So, in keeping with tonight s theme and Marie s story, I hope you always remember that disability is not about them. It is about all of us. Shabbat Shalom. 8

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