Among the thousands of portraits one may find in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is Gertrude Stein's. Picasso began it in 1906. Do you know that she sat for him more than 90 times? At one point, Picasso, in great desperation, took a cloth and completely wiped away the face of the portrait.

When, at long last, he revealed the portrait to his friends, they complained that it looked not at all like Gertrude Stein.

Picasso, undaunted, finally revealed that his work portrayed Stein, not by her superficial facial characteristics, but by her innermost essence. And even more than that, Picasso insisted that he had portrayed Gertrude Stein, not as she had been, or even as she was in the present, but as she would yet become.

And the great painter concluded:

 
Everybody thinks she is not at all like her portrait, but never mind; in the end she will manage to look just like it.

And there it stands in the Metropolitan!

Now wouldn't it be a foolish thing for me to so much as infer that I understand; that I am conversant with or in anyway comprehend Ida Kohlmeyer's paintings or sculpture? Yes, I can figure out some of them and I happen to find pleasure and delight in many of them, but Ida's high artistic caliber and the legacy of a distinguished and renowned lifetime working at her craft is far above and beyond my judgement. Her work judges me, more than I it!

Candidly I regret that I never called Ida at her workshop and said, "Ida. Let's get to know one another. What say we go to Dunbar's, my treat, for chicken and red beans. Or, maybe when you sell a fine painting, you can take me to Galatoire's. I never made that call and I sincerely regret it. But she was a legend after all, a National local celeb, and I was convinced she'd have no interest in me. I don't know why, because in a way I'm an artist too. I paint words on blank paper, and market ideas in 20 minute segments. Mine too is the vision thing, and mine too is the terror of the stubbornly blank page.

Yes, of course, Temple Sinai's members are most deeply appreciative of the generosity of Ida's family, Jo Ellen and Jane and Henry, in presenting our Congregation with this beautiful and intriguing painting which now graces the left front wall of our Feitel Auditorium. Our enormous thanks to the Lowentritts for further enriching their Temple's already fine art collection. And as generations continue to enjoy Ida's paintings, their arresting and intriguing design, as we ponder her intent in choosing each one of those shapes, may Ida's memory ever be both a benediction and a blessing.

Columnist Sidney J. Harris reminds us all that -

The art of living successfully consists of being able to hold two opposite ideas in tension at the same time: first, to make long-term plans as if we were going to live forever; and, second, to conduct ourselves daily as if we were going to die tomorrow.

God too is represented in an ancient High Holy Day poem as The Creative artist, the potter taking our clay into His hands, shaping and forming us, but also blessing us with the gift of an immortal soul.

The Torah isn't much interested in figurative art, with the most notable exception of Bezalel, who was the man commissioned by God and Moses to design the desert portable tabernacle and all of its cultic implements and its priestly vestments.

According to Exodus 35:31, four personal attributes made Bezalel the hands down favorite for the job. Torah teaches that he was endowed with four characteristics.

With the spirit of God.
With wisdom, understanding
and knowledge.

Bezalel's greatness and the outstanding success of his designs depended upon his combination of talent with wisdom, decency and spiritual stirrings.

Truth is, with rather few exceptions - most of which deal with the design of our portable tabernacle or first temple -- we Jews have had precious little to do with representational art. And it's no wonder, of course. There were (and for some, there still are) those oft-repeated warnings in Exodus (20:4) and Deuteronomy (4:16, 5:8), which unequivocally denounce the making of any image or likeness of man or beast. Yes, we were hung up on the idolatry things, and that (among other key factors) was certainly going to make unlikely the rise of a Jewish Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, or the rest.

And what a shame, really! Because the same thing happened in the case of music. Instrumental music was banned from the synagogue until the Messiah's arrival. And as the early motet's came to be associated with the Church and polyphony was introduced in Sacred music, we Jews backed off and gave away any claims to the development of sacred music.

Well that's why in all candor, we pretty much are stuck with second rate music and little in the way of Jewish artistic excellence. We cannot really compete in any sense, with the majesty and the magnificence of Church art and Church music. Of course, when they're burning you at the stake, there is little inspiration to write Cantatas or build grand synagogues. They got the grandeur, we got the grand inquisitor!

By the Third Century, some enlightened rabbinic sources would interpret the artistic Biblical prohibition as applying only to images intended to promote idolatry. Hence, Rabbi Johanon permitted the painting of frescoes and, in the Sixth Century, a mosaic floor was created at Bet Alpha synagogue in the Galilee, depicting the four seasons, and signs of the Zodiac, and the near sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham.

In 1932, the magnificent synagogue at Dura Europos in Syria was uncovered. These murals depict scenes of Samuel anointing David as king, the infancy of Moses, Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

We Jews had begun manuscript illumination at the same time in the 6^th Century that the Church was also doing. Still, Jewish artists were plagued by one inhibition after the other and we soon gave up on manuscript illumination, for all intents and purposes.

With the advent of Medieval times, and Christianity's ascendency to political power, artistic options were denied the Jews and we did without, while the great period of Gothic expression was just beginning. No Jews allowed!

So, with few exception, Jews played absolutely no role in the arts. Oh, maybe we were allowed to be the middlemen to secure supplies for the Christian artists. We were the go-betweens who could help make a Cathedral happen, but we were outlawed from the guilds and we were not players, in any real sense, on the artistic scene.

At the end of Medievalism and with the birth of European Enlightenment, be it ever so unreliable and unsteady, Jews began to emerge from behind the ghetto walls and to participate in the representational art world. Later came Chagall, Modigliani, Ben Shan, Ben Zion, Shalom of Sofed, Jacque Lipshitz to name a few.

We have seen throughout history that the artist's soul is not so valiant or pure as to always resist being coopted by political and religiuos bigots. Generally, in Nazi Germany, the "Aryan" musicians and artists were more than happy to rid themselves of the competition of their fellow Jewish artists in 1938-39. Thousands of Jewish symphony seats suddenly became empty. It was a bonanza for an ambitious musician with no integrity.

But there were also courageous exceptions! Because many artists were among the first to protest and be arrested by Hitler's brownshirts, for not going along with the party line. You see, the soul of the artist, more commonly expresses something of everyone's personal struggles or simply articulates fresh, surprising even revolutionary views.

We sense it with our artists - they teach us how to say something about one's experiences of the sacred when rational discourse comes up short.

The "Artists" lifestories are full of sadness as well as joy, failure as well as success, questions as well as answers. The work of the artist, be it a huge work by Michelangelo or a small sculpture by Ida Kohlmeyer, instruct us in the importance of reflecting on the brokeness of life in order to find coherence.

Robert Frost used to put it his way:

And the same is true for the musician, the painter, the poet - the preacher!

And, I want to conclude with this reminder -- we are all artists, aren't we? You are an artist! Each one of us bears a brush and paints a canvas called your life and my life.

It is an awesome and highly risky pursuit creating one's life. We are, of course, doomed to fall short of our aspirations. So what?

Says one great concert pianist, "I play only music that is too great to be played." so he fails to express it in all of its complexity and nuance! So what. He was in there trying to bring a masterpiece to life!

Conductor Colin Davis says - "Anyone who conducts Beethoven's Missa Solemnis ought not look for glamorous success. There is none. Because it is too big and too great for us."

Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see what these artists are saying? The soul of the artist must recognize that, in setting ourselves to do, to act, to paint, to play, to dance, to write, to work and to accomplish any truly worthy goal in life, there is more in that ambition to be realized than there is in you and me to fulfill. Says, Phillips Brooks, "It does not take great men and women to do great things; it only takes consecrated people." The horizon of excellence will always be beyond us. Do you understand that, do you see that? The trick of course is getting up every morning and heading off to our labors where we try it once again - where we consecrate ourselves to do our best with what we have to bring at any given moment.

What have you shied away from out of fear? What have you forsaken because you weren't up to the risk of failure. No great goal is fully acheived!

Says Longfellow, of those blessed with the Souls of Artists:

the heights by great men and women reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight. But while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night.

Thank you Ida Kohmeyer and someday in the Olan HaBa - someday in the world to come, let's do lunch!