Va-Yechi 48:21
“Then Yisrael said to Yosef: Here, I am dying, But Gd will be with you, He will have you return to the land of your fathers.”
In this painting, the Jews are now firmly settled in Egypt, but not yet enslaved. The past and the future are both present. Yah already told Avraham, Jacob, and Joseph that they must go to Egypt, that they will be slaves in Egypt and that they will emerge from slavery. And yet, they must live it out.
In this painting the opposites are held in dual consciousness: both are held at the same time. This liminal space of ‘this, and that’ makes it possible for a “transcendent third” to emerge: something not yet known to us.
This last chapter of Bereshit feels resonant with these times.. As Jews and Americans, we still enjoy our freedom. And, yet enslavement is encroaching. Other ethnicities are already suffering this fate, physically. We are all feeling the effects in a myriad of ways.
Marie-Louise von Franz, one of the greatest intellects and dream interpreters of the 20th century explains that living in a state of opposites tears us apart. “We must … take the opposites within (ourselves)” to avert destruction. By holding the enslaved/enslaver and the free-er/freed, within ourselves, the door opens for the Divine.
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.
