Miketz 5785
I once asked my friend Leeza, an artist, what she thought about a piece of art I was considering buying. It was very busy, full of bright colors, flowers, and people. “It’s…decorative,” she said, adding, “which is kind of an insult in the art world.” She didn’t need to further explain what she meant, which is that a true artist doesn’t try to create something “pretty” or appealing. A true artist’s goal is simply to express something, some truth, whatever is true in that particular moment, even if it rubs viewers the wrong way.
Another longtime friend and also my hevruta, Rabbi Bronwen Mullein (who will be leading Shacharit here for my installation on January 11th!), introduced me to the Serbian artist Marina Abromovic, who is quoted saying, “I never create art to be decorative.” In 2010, she had a retrospective at Moma called “The Artist is Present.” One famous piece involved her, the artist, seated at a table at the center of the room, with a chair on the other side of the table. Visitors would wait in line and share one minute of silence with Marina. She would make eye contact with each guest, sitting at the same table for eight hours a day for three full months, sharing the simplicity and power of her presence with the world. Guests cried, laughed, and said they had spiritual experiences in her presence.
One guest, however, was dierent from the rest. Marina’s former lover and fellow artist Ulay, who she had not seen in over 40 years, waited in line like all other visitors. And, in just one minute, you see every emotion on their faces. Tears, laughter, disbelief, and finally they hold hands across the table, gazing at each other.
In our Parsha, it is Yosef who is the performance artist. And, like Marina, he uses the power of presence and performance to provoke self-reflection in others. Previously, we have known Yosef as the truth teller, the dreamer, the one with no filter. Up until now, his expression has gotten him in big trouble–such as when he thoughtlessly shared the dreams he had about his brothers with his brothers.
Now, it seems, Yosef is trying a new approach to his art, his truth telling, one in which he first and foremost brings in God. When asked to interpret Pharaoh's dreams he responds, “Not I! God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare,” showing the humility he’s grown into. Secondly, his new approach to truth telling involves holding back. We see this most clearly when the brothers arrive, asking for food, and Yosef gets into character. Yosef’s restraint, captured in the recurrent verb להתאפק) to restrain oneself, or make oneself strong), highlights his intentional withholding of truth, and the withholding of his literal tears, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal himself. In his new approach to expression, Yosef hides and withholds truth in order to express the truth, in this case the truth being his own alienation.
Aviva Zornberg writes,
“Joseph sets himself to act in a role of total alienation...he tests his actual alienation, his lostness, by taking it almost to a point of caricature...in order finally to be known by his brothers in a way that will heal the rifts of the past, Joseph makes himself strange to the point of uncanniness. His accusations that they are spies constitute bizarre probes of their responses, while his inquisitorial persona is so incomprehensible that his brothers are freed, in a sense, from any attempt to communicate with him...[Joseph sets] a plot afoot to reveal his brothers' response to Benjamin under duress. Repressed memories of their cruelty to him rise to the surface, as their responsibility to Rachel's other son, Benjamin, is tested. Will they abandon him, as they abandoned Joseph in the past?”
My hevruta, also a performance artist, said that “Performance art is not necessarily theatrical, but something occurs that triggers a wondering,” and that’s exactly what this performance of Yosef’s did. It triggered a wonderment and self reection in the brothers’ minds and hearts, shown by them asking one another, “וּנֽלָ היםִ֖ אֱ שהָׂ֥ עָ אתֹזּ֛מה־ַ” What is this that God has done to us?” Like any good encounter with art, or any good ritual, it makes the brother’s encounter themselves, their shadows, and offers them the chance to make another choice.
The morning after this year’s presidential election, I turned to one of my elder friends, an 86 year old former nun, who lived in Guatemala under dictatorship many years ago. Having lived under crushing circumstances, I knew she had real lived wisdom to share. “Ok,” she said, heavily, “this is the time for art, for poetry, for friends and community.” Artists and art have always become central during dark times in our country and in the world, and they will become deeply important and hopefully equally valued in this next chapter of our country’s history.
May we be blessed, like Yosef, to master the art of expression for the sake of greater truth in the world. Whether you consider yourself an artist or not, I invite you to consider what you could create and express in this time of literal and metaphorical darkness. As we step into this darkness together, may our expressions of truth—through art, poetry, and connection—become the nerot that illuminate our path.
Chag Sameach, Shabbat Shalom
