Julian Alper
After traipsing around town in search of the perfect lulav and etrog last year, I retired to my favourite local café for a coffee and a well-earned rest. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for finding a nice long (and fat) lulav and a good-sized lemon-yellow etrog, and of course the hadassim (myrtle stems, three thereof) and aravot (a pair of willow stems) that for sure would last just a day or two before needing to be replaced. Coffee in hand, I leafed through a pocket-sized book of Marc Chagall paintings and I happened upon his “Feast Day (Rabbi with Lemon)”.
To the trained eye, it is quite obvious that the lime-coloured “lemon” in the hand of the Hasidic rabbi is no more a lemon than a pineapple is an apple. But the “lemon” is not the most curious aspect of Chagall’s painting; the curiosity here is that Chagall has painted on top of the rabbi’s head, another rabbi – a backward-facing rabbi. This painting reminded me of another I have seen recently – “In Prayer at Sukkot” by Paula Gans. To the trained eye, there’s also something rather curious about Gans’s Hasidic rabbi: his etrog is upside-down[1], with the pitom facing down while the stalk faces up – the opposite of the traditional method. I wondered what these rabbis could mean, and whether they are connected to the upside-down etrog.
I have never really managed to get myself inside Chagall’s head, to understand what he had in mind when he painted some of his great masterpieces. His psychedelic goats, floating people, animals within animals and music-playing goats, no doubt, can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. I would love to have travelled back in time to spend hours chatting with him to hear his interpretations of his paintings. Some of his rabbi paintings are straightforward portraits, though for sure, each one tells its own story. This painting, as well as many others of his, would need a full chapter in the yet-to-be-written ‘Simple Guide to Understanding Chagall’.
A day or two after purchasing my lulav, etrog, and coffee, I read an essay: ‘The Anatomy of an Etrog’ by Rabbi Dr Norman Lamm[2] z”l, formerly the Chancellor of Yeshiva University. Though I am not suggesting for one moment that this was what motivated Chagall to paint a rabbi on the head of the rabbi, or Gans to paint an inverted etrog, I did gain an understanding of the importance of Jewish history from looking at these paintings in light of Rabbi Lamm’s explanation of the etrog.
Rabbi Lamm writes that there is an appendage at either end of the etrog. There is the oketz, the stalk, that attaches the etrog to the tree. This represents the history of the Jewish people, its roots, its origins, the place we have come from. And at the other end is the pitom, the remnants of the flower. This represents growth, new life, the future of the Jewish people. When holding the etrog, together with a lulav, a Jew remembers whence they have come and where they are going. They remember they have come from an unbroken chain of antecedents, each of whom has made a contribution to their DNA and place in life; they recall Jewish history and culture of the last 3,700 years, and look to the future knowing that they themselves are a link in the chain to the next generation. The future of the Jewish people depends on it.
When I see Chagall’s rabbi holding his etrog, I think of the future destiny of our people. When I see the rabbi on the rabbi’s head looking back, I think of our whole history. We know where we have come from. We must be sure to know where we are headed.
When I see Gans’s etrog, I get the feeling that she knew where she had come from, but she did not know where she was heading. In 1920, when she painted her rabbi and his etrog, she could not have known where she was heading. Perhaps it was just as well. Paula Gans, a portrait painter of some note, was born in 1883 near Prague. She moved to Hamburg in 1920 with her brother, Richard. In November 1941 they were informed they were to be deported to the Minsk ghetto. The day before the deportation, Paula committed suicide. Richard was killed in Minsk some months later.
Ironically, Paula Gans’s painting foretold her future without her realising. Chagall, though, thankfully fared much better – his destiny perhaps foreseen, likewise, in his painting. He left his birthplace Vitebsk in Belarus in 1923, only to find himself in Vichy France at the outbreak of WW2. Knowing the future looked bleak for a Jewish artist, whose works were labelled ‘degenerate’ by the Nazis, he managed to escape in 1941 just in time, together with his wife Bella, and spent the remainder of the war and the immediate post-war years in the US.
As I hold my etrog each year, I remember our history, and I hold my lulav and etrog upright, hoping and praying that the future of the Jewish people and the future of Israel will be as bright as my lemon-yellow etrog.
[1] While it is certainly true that the etrog is inverted by some while saying the blessing over it, this author feels that Gans’s rabbi has gotten beyond the bracha stage, and the etrog should be shown with the pitom facing upwards.
[2] The Anatomy of an Etrog – Rabbi Dr Norman Lamm – Sukkot 1968
Site Operations and Technology by The Berman Consulting Group.