Introduction: Jill Caporlingua teaches art in Highland Park. Welcome, Jill!
I’ve often wondered what drives people to create. Maybe it’s different for me because art is my profession and such an integral part of who I am, so I can’t even imagine not doing art. Still I wonder, what makes my students and others who aren’t creating art as their livelihood feel the urge? Is it for relaxation? Recreation? A form of therapy? A way to communicate with others or express feelings and ideas? I’d be happy to hear anyone’s comments on this topic…
I’ve heard some artists say they believe it should ONLY be for a certain “higher” purpose. Some grand quest for knowledge or to express a political or social message they deem worthy.
Well, this is my blog and I have to say: I disagree whole-heartedly! I think art should be accessible to everyone and can benefit anyone, for whatever reason they are driven to create. Throughout history, it has not just been Michelangelo and Picasso who have something to say. Art can enrich the life and spirit of all of us. Look at the drawings on caves from thousands of years ago, the amazing so-called primitive art, naive art, folk art, and outsider art. These are art forms born from artists without any formal training, and I highly recommend looking them up. The work is incredibly inspiring.
Of course, as an art teacher, I believe there are great benefits to learning technique, but that’s a blog for another day. Until then, for whatever reasons drive you, and whatever your medium: keep creating!
At our Friday night dinner table, my daughter (who is five) asked the question: Why didn’t Yosef send a letter to Yaakov? To let him know he was alive? My daughter’s answer was he was too busy. My son had a different answer, that Yosef did not want to shock his elderly father with the news. To which my daughter insisted that she was right! So my husband tried to explain that there can be multiple answers to a question. But I have the truth!, responded my daughter.
So I did a little research and found two more answers at a site called Shuvu Bonim:
There are several questions we could ask about the matter of Yosef. How is it possible that all those years he did not send any message to his father that he was alive and living in Egypt? Surely he could have done it with ease; he was the servant of Potiphar who was himself a high officer, the chief priest, (Bereishis 41:50, “Potiphera the Kohen of Ohn.” Rashi explains that Potiphera and Potiphar were one and the same, and the Ramban clarifies that, in this context, Kohen signifies a gentile priest). The possibility existed, and especially afterward, when he was made second to the king of Egypt. What would have been the problem to send a letter in the mail or with an Egyptian messenger? Egypt was then the world’s commercial center, and all the surrounding countries did business there, importing and exporting. It should have been no problem at all to find a courier traveling to Canaan.
There were two reasons why Yosef did not do this. Firstly, if Yaakov were to receive a letter that Yosef was alive and would know that the brothers had sold him, he would be angry with the brothers and punish them. With one glance, he could reduce them to a heap of bones. Yosef did not want that they should be punished, especially since the Jewish people still had to emerge from them. Secondly, if the brothers were to hear of his success, and, more particularly, that he had been made a king, they would never come to repent for what they had done. They would never feel any regret, they would say instead, “It was in our merit that he thrived, it was in our merit that he was made a ruler.” The Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer says that for forty years he was second to the king, and for another forty years he was the actual king. During his last forty years in Egypt, he was king, and he sought a way the entire time to bring the brothers to regret what they had done. He wanted them to come to true regret, from the depths of their hearts, so that the heavenly accusation against them would be stilled. Without that happening, they could not possibly continue to exist.
This is the way that the Beis HaLevi, who was the father of Rav Chayim Brisker and the grandfather of Rav Yosef Dov, the Brisker Rav, explains the verse, “And Yosef said to his brothers, ‘ I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?’ And they were unable to answer him for they were confounded before him.” (Beis HaLevi, Parshas Vayigash, Bereishis 45:3.) The Midrash comments on this, “Woe to us from the day of judgment! Woe to us from the day of rebuke! The brothers were unable to withstand the rebuke of their adversary.”
My own personal, psychologically-oriented explanation is Yosef had his own fears. He probably had a block on reconnecting with his family members. So in some ways, my daughter is right: he kept himself busy in order to avoid dealing with the deep-down pain he must have felt by his brothers’ rejection.
I stole this idea from a friend who may have taken it from another friend.
Just as Jewish music is often written in minor key, so A Series of Unfortunate Events is often on the down side. Compare it to other children’s fantasy adventure novels. Frodo of the Lord of the Rings encounters many dangers and completes his quest. Lyra of His Dark Materials lies her way into saving the children. Harry Potter and friends conquer the Dark Lord. But those Baudelaire children may still be on the run…
A sample of Daniel Handler’s miserable prose (Lemony Snicket’s real name):
Dear Reader,
If you have picked up this book with the hope of finding a simple and cheery tale. I’m afraid you have picked up the wrong book altogether. The story may seem cheery at first, when the Baudelaire children spend time in the company of some interesting reptiles and a giddy uncle, but don’t be fooled. If you know anything at all about the unlucky Baudelaire children, you already know that even pleasant events lead down the same road to misery.
So here’s the Jewish nimshal to the books: the Baudelaire children are B’nei Yisrael (Children of Israel), and Count Olaf is anti-semitism, who follows them everywhere. They find a new guardian (some new country that treats them OK, for a while, say, Spain or Poland), but then Olaf rears his ugly head again.
More on Lemony Snicket and Jewish Themes:
The Jewish Secrets of Lemony Snicket
My favorite section of my website is called Pics of the Month. My intention is to put up new art, photos, Flash bits every month. OK, maybe I should call it Pics of Every Two or Three Months. But that would be a weird title. I captured some beautiful fall leaves recently; I intend to put them up soon. Yesterday, the weather looked pretty bleak out there, all the fall leaves had turned brown and bunched in a corner, whatever snow fell soon turned into a wet crunchy crust on the sidewalk. I see in Boston it snowed yesterday. We had a lot of very wet sleet here in Jersey.
Getting back to the pics…I haven’t had much time to do canvas or paper-based art lately. I’ve been busy with work (more about that in a different post) and designing this blog. I use Pics of the Month to build up my Flash skills, and I would like an alef-bet Flash movie to appear there soon. My daughter has been rather alef-bet challenged, meaning she can’t understand why in the world she should learn those funny characters we keep drawing for her on pieces of scrap paper. For a treat, here is one of my fall photos (look for diagonals and movement— are those two trees talking to each other? One is mine, and one is my neighbor’s):
Seems to me the best way to learn all about blogs is to blog, right?
So Technorati wants me to post this to claim my blog:
Technorati Profile
Leave me comments, so I can learn more about how to handle those…
Welcome to the first post of “Here in Highland Park, New Jersey”. Or the short name: “Here in HP”. I hope to bring you stories about Highland Park, what’s going on in the local Jewish community, ideas on how to build a productive website, how to get your family to eat healthy food, artsy photos and fun Flash tidbits and more. I will invite comments, and we will even have guests contributors!
One possible contributor may talk about any of these topics: art, nutrition, general health, yoga, cooking, keeping an environmentally sound home (natural cleaning, recycling, etc)… is that enough to keep you interested?
I would also like to add some short parsha thoughts…for those of you who are “Hebrew-challenged”, the parsha is the portion of the torah being read each week. For example, this week is Vayigash… in which Joseph finally reveals his identity.
