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Moss writes "This work is a kind of physical, poetic and ritual embodiment of this notion of the love affair between God and the Jewish people. I began my career with the ambitious project of reviving the ancient art of the illuminated Ketubah...I knew I had to revive this magnificent art form." David Moss selected a poem by the 16th and 17th century poet Rabbi Israel Najara based on the Song of Songs.Texts in the inner border are based on the Shabbat, the micrographic stems and leaves deal with Zion and the outside border uses the wedding theme. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Moss writes "I chose to do one of these 'step psalms', Psalm 134, in the actual form of steps. The short psalm reads: A song of Ascent / Behold, Bless God...I originally designed the letterforms I used in this work for a Ketubah. It was one in which I wanted to use the step motif...I suppose any spiritual journey is a kind of gradual, lifelong, step-like movement - ideally upward and forward but, alas, all too often with many downward and backward regressions." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss writes, "Several years ago Iwas at a prant fair in Brooklyn and met a wonderful young artist named Chris Kline...I wondered what an alphabet book might be like using the rather eclectic set of symbols of the Paleo-Hebrew interpreted in Chris's brilliant style...I did the set of letters in black and white fleshed out somewhat into the third dimension. I told Chris what animal or object each letter originally was based on and let him do his magic. It took years to complete the book, but the result was amazing. Chris printed the whole book by hand in serigraphy in bright vibrant florescent colors. The whole is my attempt to explore, honor and memorialize in a very contemporary form this incrediibly simple but remarkably impactful invention - the Alphabet.' -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents Moss writes, "The early writing systems were based on abstracting physical images...In Asia with ideograms and Egypt with hieroglyphics and cuneiform in Mesopotamia. In all these now literate societies, educated classes of scribes, writers and readers, developed to utilize the immense new power of the written word...But an equally revolutionary step in writing accurred right here [in Israel]. Early traces of this revolution were discovered in caves in the Sinai from around 1500 BCE. Someone had the brilliant idea that instead of using symbols to physically represent objects or ideas, what if the symbol just represented the initial sound of the word it depicted. It meant that instead of requiring thousands of characters to record language in written form, it could be accomplished with about twenty to thirty simple symbols! And thus the Alphabet was born.This breakthrough meant that insted of requiring years of hightly specialized study for exclusive and powerful elements of a...

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Moss writes "The four children of the Passover Haggadah intrigue us every year...We now open the folder and we see these four children in a rather unconventional treatment...The unification of the folksy and the literate are embodied here. For each of these primitive looking four children is actually a Hebrew word. When turned on its side and opened, each one's title magically appears: Chacham - the Wise one; Rasha - the Wicked one; Tam the Simple one and SHYL - the one who dooes not know how to ask." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss writes,"The Mizvah of the Counting of the Omer is rather unique. It requires the mindful, unified counting of forty-nine days from the second day of Passover until Shavuot...For this piece, I wanted to create an Omer Calendar that would contain the entire set, would capture all the information needed for the three-part counting plus the Kabbalistic attributes for every day. As my artistic challenge, I sought to do this without using any Hebrew or Roman letters, or any numerals...thus you may proceed, day by day from one to forty-nine, ...This period helps make us aware of th passing of time, of the possibility of gradual but steady development and growth and can truly make us realize how much each day 'counts'." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss writes, "Six days a week I take a ten-minute bike ride through Jerusalem. I also bike through time, history, memories and feelings as I pedal from home to my studio. I made a little map of my studio." The text of the brochure by Moss describes his thoughts about maps in general and his own personal realities. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss writes, "I have long been taken by the notion of topographical maps [that] seek to translate the intimate features of a place into a graphic representation.The origins of this type of mapping are closely connected to the Land of Israel and Jerusalem. My Dream Map is an attempt to recapture some of the mystery and charm of these early maps." The image for this print is based on an original in the collection of Richard and Beatrice Levy. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss provides a poem caption for each of the stylized letters he created in this Hebrew alphabetical text. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The Hebrew calligraphy is the prayer said upon waking every morning, Modeh Ani - Thankful am I. David Moss writes, "Next to each work I created a small frame. I then inserted family photos into it...Each morning it helped me expand my awareness of and gratitude for the abundant mercy that had been showered upon me...The piece is meant to be framed with your own pictures." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This work was inspired by the Tzitzit, the ritual fringe prescribed in the fifteenth chapter of Numbers. David Moss writes that he wanted to capture the meaning and history of the Tzitzit "not only to display [its] symbolic pattern but to actually embody it...The background, garment and knotted parts of the Tzitzit were produced by serigraphy - the traditional silk-screen process used to obtain flat, even, opaque colors. That aprt is a fixed traditional art edition print. But I added by hand the free flowing strings that spout forth from these rigid, fixed knots. Every string in every print is unique, free and unconstrained.Is this a print or an original? Defined or free? Like the Tzizit it is the unification of both." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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According to David Moss' explanation in the afterward of the accompanying book, the print was originally designed as a mural for the Akiba Academy in Dallas. The piece was a 45-foot canvas mural in three sections running down the entire central hall. Originally created as a collage using cut, colored papers it was scanned and refined to create the mural as well as the fine art giclee print. the work was inspired by a visit to the Arthur and Metta Jaffe Libraray at Florida Atlantic University. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss writes about the use of the custom of using written childbirth amulets exorcising the ancient feminist Lilit. This work is Moss' Hebrew typographic interpretation of his family's amulet. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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David Moss writes, "Cause us to lie down in peace...The Talmud says that sleep is one-sixtieth of death and dreams are one-sixtieth of prophecy. It is not surprising, therefore, that as night falls we pray this beautiful prayer in the evening service for peaceful rest, for wisdom, for protection, for guarding, for compassion and life...This work brings together two very real objects from my life - a quilt and a bed - and celebrates that moment when night falls, when a smidgen of death and a touch of prophecy approach, and objects dreamily begin to recite their tales." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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David Moss writes, "The ideas and intention and direction are fundamental Jewish notions. As direction is essential in reaching a physical destination, intention is needed to reach practical and spiritual goals. The Hebrew word kavanah brings together the ideas of direction, intention and concentration. Through kavanah we manage to stay directed and reach our desstiny in spite of life's many twists and turns. Aphysical expression of this idea is the traditional Jewish plaque known as the "Mizrach." Mizrach means 'East', and is derived from the root of 'shining', as in the shining forth of the rising, morning sun.The origin of this folk art piece was the custom of praying towards Jerusalem, which in most of the Jewish world meant facing east. Upon entering a room in which a Mizrach was hung, one would be immediately oriented for the direction of prayer." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

David Moss writes, "The ideas and intention and direction are fundamental Jewish notions. As direction is essential in reaching a physical destination, intention is needed to reach practical and spiritual goals. The Hebrew word kavanah brings together the ideas of direction, intention and concentration. Through kavanah we manage to stay directed and reach our desstiny in spite of life's many twists and turns. Aphysical expression of this idea is the traditional Jewish plaque known as the "Mizrach." Mizrach means 'East', and is derived from the root of 'shining', as in the shining forth of the rising, morning sun.The origin of this folk art piece was the custom of praying towards Jerusalem, which in most of the Jewish world meant facing east. Upon entering a room in which a Mizrach was hung, one would be immediately oriented for the direction of prayer." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents

Moss writes,"There is something magical about mosaics...there seems to be some innate fascination with the idea that many tiny individual color segments can be blended by the eye and the mind into a continuous image...I realized I could do micro painted mosaics with the broad strokes [of a turkey feather quill pen] making the miniscule squares of color." The quote is from psalms 119 " I rejoiced when they said to me: Let us go up to the house of the Lord." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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David Moss writes in the brochure that "this work was inspired by the blue gates and doors of Zefat...an unspoken metaphor hovers over this ancient custom of painting entrances blue in Zefat...the text of this little book is the well-known verse of Psalms 118:19: "Open for me the gates of righteousness; I shall enter them and I shall praise God." The abstsract Hebrew letters of this verse are uniquely designed by Moss to fit into the four gate-like papercuts. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The images for the picture poems are abstract and the captions are in Hebrew. David Moss writes, "I believe that one of the most fundamental concepts of Judaism is balance - balance between the physical and the spiritual, between time and space, between strictness and leniency, between justice and compassion, between heritage and destiny...This little book is an attempt to give this notion of biblical parallelism a visual interpretation." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Moss writes,"Psalm 119 is a long, brilliant ode, praise, and paean to Torah itself...This work of art was my attempt to create a version of psalm 119 that highlights its intimate connection with the Hebrew alphabet, reflects its length and structure and relates to its prime theme of Torah.. ..I drew out an alphabet and wrote as much of the text as I could for each letter in micrography, outlining the letter itself...I continued the text by filling in the borders around the letters and around the whole text." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.