The Triad of Art Kabbalah and Healing

Kabbalah Art and Healing

In the dialogue relating
to healing, art and Judaism,
it is helpful to have the perspective
that “illness”,
particularly the whole range of
mental disorders, even normal tension,
is the result of a “constricted”
consciousness,
which is called in the Kabbalah:
MiTZRayim - מצרים
the Hebrew name for Egypt,
connected to words with
the Hebrew root M-TZ-R מצר
meaning straits and constriction.
(It is interesting to note
that the suffix "ayim" ים
in the word Mitzrayim
connates a doubling effect,
as if to imply a
"constriction within a constriction".
That is to say a person
who is (perhaps happily)
completely unaware
of his constricted view of life.)

The responsibility of the healer is
to help deliver his patient
from his mental "Egypt" to achieve
a new and expansive vision
of his life and mission.
The constricted mundane
consciousness is often described
in the Kabbalah
as the Elo-kim אלו-הים mode,
a world ruled only
by natural & rational laws.

Expansive consciousness is the
Yod-Kay-Vav-Kay י-ה-ו-ה mode,
which implies
the Past, the Present and the Future,
together and simultaneously,
and is the essence
of the Jewish religious faith.
This mode name is so holy
that we substitute in a secular context
just the word: HaShem השם: The Name.

The above approach,
especially in the areas
of the rejuvenation of prayer
and holiday observance &
verbal oriented meditation
is commonly practiced
in many synagogues and havurot.

Our innovation
is its implementation
in the visual arts.

There is a saying:
“You are what you eat”.
We would change it to:
“You are what you
hang up on your walls”.

Certainly, the quality and direction
of a person’s daily visual stimuli
must have an influence
on his/her mood
and can be a springboard
to profound spiritual meditation.
We would argue that
in the Judaic tradition,
usually thought of as
essentially iconoclastic,
according to the misinterpretation
of the percept,
not to make a “graven image”,
there are many areas
which are especially appropriate
to visual meditation
and a source of inspiration
for the artist.

1. The Sacred Letters or the Hebrew letters
according to the scribal style
that appears in the Torah scroll.

2. Meditations and Imaginings
on the Jewish Star
(in this example,
a different view of the Holocaust),
the Tree of Life diagram of the sephirot
and visions of
the Third Temple and Future Jerusalem .

3. Images of the Dialogue-Antilogue series ,
suggesting through
abstract forms and archetypes
the intimate relationship
between a man and his wife,
the most potent kabbalistic
metaphor for spiritual connection.

4. In general, abstract art, or more precisely
illusionist or “gestalt” art,
can be become
a strong stimulant to meditation,
since it invites
the active participation of the viewer
with the endless possibility
of seeing “new things”,
thus eliciting multi-layered
expansive consciousness.

5. The use of the Golden Section
(Fibonacci series), Cubes and Supercubes,
Spiral Helixes and Fractals,
all of which are hinted at
in Jewish philosophy
and in particular the Kabbalah.

Finally we can our suggest our Torah based sites:

Parshat HaShavua - the weekly Torah Reading

Sefer Yetzira

Jewish and Chassidic Holidays

Since “seeing is believing”
we invite you to test our “thesis”
by viewing samples
of our work at our web site.
Just follow the menus and the links:

Links to recommended sites on Kabbalah:

The Gal Einai Home Page

Kabbalah Online