This is an old place, filled with layers of time – remnants, some cherished and others just there or even forgotten. And with time the built environment crumbles, loses meaning and transforms into its own “natural” environment, a kind of surrogate forest and like a forest it becomes full of secrets and endlessly surprising.
But here in addition to the term built environment I should add the terms sculpted, eccentric and trickster, environments. A short walk around the stone, concrete and plaster “forest” near our hotel reveals a menagerie filled with snakes, spiders, and lizards, creeping vines, leaves, and seeds, sudden faces with mouths agape, deer, and centaurs, atlas style figures galore, flying babies, violin playing babies and more, seemingly without end. All this accumulation of human industry is meant to make life less predicable, more “wonder–full” and mysterious.
The impulse to enliven the everyday is present everywhere and in every time, in one form or another. Jewish culture is no exception. Indeed Jewish art abounds with real and imaginary creatures. Deer, bears, wolves and geese dwell alongside the legendary Leviatan, griffins, unicorns and elephants with castles on their backs. All adorn ancient Jewish manuscripts, as well as synagogue ceilings. It’s this visual language that I and my teaching partner Ildi, with her students, have been using as our raw material this week.
The Leviatan with Benny and Ildi
After an overview of these old and almost lost symbols we began with an examination of one particularly rich piece of folklore. According to Jewish legend, as G-d began to create the world there were three giant living things already in existence.
One was the master of the sky, a big bird called Ziz Chol. Then there was the Shor Ha’Bar – the giant bull, ruler of the dry land. And finally the lord of all the waters and the largest of them all was the Leviatan – a big fish!
It is said that when the messiah will come we will have a feast and (spiritually) “consume” the Leviatan. As a creature that was around at the beginning of time and will be around at the end of time it is traditionally depicted in a circle with its head and tail touching.
Now, here at the Lauder school, the Leviatan has circled ‘round again, connecting the past with the present, the old world with the new and heaven with earth.
