Statement

The work may be seen in the context
of disturbing current events
in Israel and the world,
where the dominant trend of behavior
of many individuals and society
seems to be that only the violent prevail.
If I were to seek an appropriate phrase
from Jewish sources,
I would choose the following section
from the Ethics of the Fathers
Pirke Avot 3:2 פרקי אבות
Rabbi Hanina, the priest second-in-charge,
says: One should pray
for the authority of Kingdom,
because if there is no Fear from it,
each person would Swallow his friend alive.

It would seem that Rabbi Hanina voices
a basically pessimistic view
about human nature
and prefers any kind of societal order
even the oppressive rule
of the Roman empire to anarchy.
This is emphasized by the fact
that Rabbi Hanina himself
was one of the famous Ten Martyrs
who were cruelly tortured by the Romans.

This idea would seem
to fit the triptych submitted.
The center panel suggests
a scene of uncontrolled violence
which is being "contained"
by the outer panels
with their strong diagonal vectors
and a hint of two fishes
swallowing each other
on the right and perhaps
a Roman soldier on the left.

#mystic

A Jewish mystical interpretation sheds
a completely different light on the phrase
and ultimately the idea behind the triptych.
The context now is not societal
but the individual.
The idea of "swallowing one's friend alive"
is not to kill him, but to believe because
of an exaggerated self-evaluation
that everyone else exists
(and is allowed to live)
only to be absorbed and used
to satisfy one's own needs.
The correction for this is
the Fear of Malchut or Kingdom,
a higher Divine Authority,
which forces the individual
to contain and ultimately transcend
his ego and self-aggrandizement.
Now the center panel
can relate to the EEG activity
of an individual's brain
while the diagonal vectors
on the side panel symbolize
or suggest transcendence.

This is one of the important secrets
of the Hebrew letter Aleph א,
the only letter with
a dominant diagonal form
and of course the first letter
of the Ten Commandments.

Finally, we can derive
a typically Jewish exegesis
that internalizes
the “swallowed friend”
to include even our sworn enemies,
such as Pharaoh and Amalek,
which become now
symbols of the undesirable
aspects of one’s own personality.
And if a tikkun or correction
of the individual is achieved,
it can then have a positive influence
also on the outside reality and society.

Return to 3-D Triptychs
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