How is the universe put together? What is humankind’s place? Scholar and Kabbalah instructor Chaim Solomon raised these questions in his recent talk at the NSU Art Museum regarding artist Anselm Kiefer’s references to Kabbalah in his work, on exhibit at NSU through September 20. Solomon said that the ancient mystical tradition of Kabbalah is not Jewish mysticism. Rather, he said, it is the spiritual laws of the universe, the blueprint of the universe.
Several of Kiefer’s amazingly powerful works of art in this exhibit (the first of NSU’s Regeneration series) draw on the Kabbalah. “What we have in this amazing museum does not originate with the artist,” Solomon said, “— not to take anything away from the artists, who are very talented.” Kiefer, who was born in Germany two months before the end of World War II, was one the the first artists whose work would touch upon the war, Nazism and the evils of the Holocaust.
The Kabbalah belongs to all religions, Solomon said, and is open to every human being on earth. He added that as the body has many organs, an orchestra has many instruments, and the world has many religions. The Zohar, the book that lays out Kabbalah, was put into writing 2,000 years ago, Solomon said. It speaks of invisible energies that can have an impact on us. “It’s not mysticism; it’s technology,” he said.
For example, before science proved it, the Zohar said that the earth rolls like a ball and people live above and below it. The Zohar speaks about the theory of relativity, quantum physics, and superstring theory, among other things that science revealed only in modern times. The Zohar even speaks about good and bad fatty acids, yet science first discovered good and bad cholesterol in the 1980s, Solomon said.
Kabbala is about how to give everyone control over life by understanding the laws of the universe. “Does gravity stop working for the person who doesn’t believe in it?” Solomon asked.
Kiefer’s Tree of Life
God put the 10 Sephirot (creative forces) into the Tree of Life, the 10 energies from the endless world to our world, so we can be co-creators (using our free will) to give each of us lasting fulfillment, Solomon said. Anselm Kiefer depicts the Tree of Life in a large sculpture on display in the NSU exhibit. The piece contains a skirt with glass shards, which represent the souls of all of us, Solomon said.
Solomon asked: “If I put a dark curtain over a lamp, does the light in the lamp stop shining? No. I just have to remove the curtain [to see the light]. The Tree of Knowledge says there is no force of darkness, only a disconnect from the light. It there is a way to create chaos in the world, there is a way to make it right,” he said. “Consideration of the other person will solve the chaos. Kabbalah is pushing us to be kind and compassionate to each other,” he said.
Another Kiefer piece in the exhibit draws upon the story of Jacob’s ladder, which the angels were climbing up and down. It is about souls going up to heaven and coming back down, as in reincarnation, another opportunity for us to remove the “blocks of stone” hiding our perfection, said Solomon, who teaches at The Kabbalah Centre in Boca Raton.
During the question and answer session, a woman in the audience said: “When I saw the exhibit, I could barely stand. I think Anselm Kiefer was struggling to find the light.”
