Va-Yigash 46:3
“Now he said:
I am El/God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt, for a great nation will I make of you there.”
Va-Yigash 46:3
“Now he said:
I am El/God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt, for a great nation will I make of you there.”
In this painting, the egg reappears with a fractured surface. Another birth cycle will be initiated in Egypt for Avraham and Sarah’s descendants: from freedom to enslavement and eventually, freedom.
These words of Yah come to Jacob in yet another “vision of the night” as Sarah’s grandson makes his way to Egypt to see Joseph. There is much to be afraid of, and yet the instruction is “not to be afraid”.
In Dreaming in Dark Times, Sharon Silwinski speaks of “original courage,” a phrase coined by Hannah Arendt: “to bare one’s soul before others.” This type of courage is “woven out of the very fabric of one’s fear.” Freedom depends upon this type of courage because it makes action and speech possible in the public sphere.
What are we afraid of when we speak up? Whether physical or psychological, we all want to belong at home. Exile has always been a deep fear within the public sphere and is at the heart of so much deliberate discord now.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, in her class “Faces of the Shekhinah,” shows that one of Her Faces is exile.
“In every place to which Israel was exiled, the Shekhinah was exiled with them.”
Zohar I, 210b
The steps we must take, the things we must say, can be terrifying, and may lead to exile. Yet, fear accompanied by love, can help us find “original courage.”
Etja Ruth is an artist whose work bridges art and healing, exploring the places where image, movement, and voice reveal the unseen. Learn more about her Bereshit/Genesis paintings here.
