The Triptych

Here I present the  text and oil paintings for my Tryptich, "A Midrash on Time," which I began in the Summer of 2014 and completed in 2015. The Triptych consists of three large oil paintings and two documents, one in Hebrew and one in English, presenting the midrash and the (completely apocryphal) biblical passages on which it is "based"--as well as apocryphal Talmudic discussion and disputation. 

The midrash grows out of my  wonder and disturbance at the very existence of time—of how the essence of things, which to my mind must be eternal, seems to escape from under us because each moment passes and disappears.  My midrash considers the “null hypothesis” that there is no time at all and draws out the implications of time’s creation.

Genesis Apocrypha 1-6

1 God had formed the firmament, the great lights, the garden,

2 And man and woman, back to back.

3 They were summoned before God to help choose.

4 But Adam and Eve fled from the garden  with the flowers of time,

5 Into a land of ancient olive trees, cliffs and stones,

6 And died, with their image as their share in eternity.

Before The Birth of Time

In pre-history, when only eternal angelic beings consorted with the Holy One in the heavenly court, the elements and media of our world were devised in flashes of creative power that thoroughly dwarf the inventions and discoveries of humankind. After matter, light, and the firmament had been formed, the sun and moon fixed in their place, and Adam and Eve set in an eternal pose, an angelic being was struck by the most profound notion of all, an idea that was destined to have a greater impact upon the cosmos than any other.

For this angelic soul arrived at the notion that the ideas, forms, objects, lights, and creatures that had hitherto been stagnant in an unchanging world, should be filtered through the medium of time! Once informed of this radical notion, the Holy One relegated to his angel the task of forging the template that would set all things and ideas in motion, make them subject to change, and create the foundation for history, biography, and experience.