a 90 minute collage of text, music and images, based on the lives of rabbi nachman of breslav and salon hostess rahel varnhagen. the lives of these two historical persons overlapped during the first decade of the 19th century. rabbi nachman of breslav founded the breslav hassidic sect in the ukraine, and rahel varnhagen was a salon hostess of the jewish enlightenment movement, known as the "haskalah", in berlin. i combined their biographies and imagined what might have happened in reality and in fantasy if nachman showed up at rahel's salon and attempted to bring the assimilating jews there back to the fold of orthodox judaism. the 90 minute show begins in the style of naturalism and evolves into an expressionistic fantasy being woven by the two main characters, in which nachman projects onto rahel the role of "the shekhinah" ( female aspect of god and also the jewish people in relation to god), while rahel projects onto nachman the role of messiah. so we end up at the end of the show with a fantasy marriage of the jewish people and the jewish messiah at the end of days, without forgetting for a moment that in real life these two never met and as a matter of fact rahel converted to christianity and married the german protestant nobleman august varnhagen. IN THE ESSAYS THAT FOLLOW THE SHOW HAS ITS ORIGINAL NAME, "RAHEL! RAHEL!". I CHANGED THE NAME AFTER I DISCOVERED ON THE NET THAT PAUL NEWMAN MADE A MOVIE WITH THAT NAME BACK IN THE 1960'S. TO VIEW OR DOWNLOAD ALL OF MY VIDEOS, PLUS 1500 PAGES OF MY EXPLANATORY ESSAYS (ALL AT NO CHARGE) PLEASE VISIT MY WEBSITE: franklynwepner.com. ALSO PLEASE NOTE MY NEW EMAIL ADDRESS, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH ME ANY COMMENTS ABOUT MY WORK: franklynwepner@gmail.com. IN THE LISTING OF VIDEOS THE LETTERS (HQ) REFER TO A HIGHER QUALITY VERSION OF THE VIDEO, WHICH IS AVAILABLE TO YOU IF YOUR COMPUTER CAN HANDLE IT. APPRECIATING MY MUSICAL SHOW "RAHEL! RAHEL!" 1. GENERAL THEORY Of course, the best way to begin to appreciate most works of art is just to experience them a few times and form your own conclusions. The opinions of the creator of an artwork are merely incidental at that stage of the process. And certainly once an artwork is created it takes on a life of its own, just like a child more and more slips out of the control of its parents. Nevertheless, I think we will agree that this particular artwork is unique in its form, what it seeks to accomplish, and the demands it makes on its audience. "Rahel! Rahel!" is an ambitious project which reaches out beyond the realm of art and grapples with major issues of religion and philosophy. Whether I as the author have succeeded in my project is for you the audience to decide, but since my artwork is intended to operate on several different levels I feel it appropriate for me to lay out for you the plan of what might be there for you if I have succeeded in carrying out my original goals. Just as I did not compromise in creating the piece, I will not compromise here in discussing the piece. If you don't "get it", maybe I failed and there ain't nothing there to "get" in the first place. Or if you don't "get it", maybe you need to do some homework on your own, or just give up on it and go do something else more appropriate for your talents. Nachman of Breslav wrote "my Torah is entirely 'b'hinot' ". "B'hinot", in Hebrew, means "aspects of", "associations", "points of view". For example, if I think of vanilla ice cream then I can associate to that idea chocolate ice cream, or cows, or a forest of vanilla beans somewhere in Madagascar. In other words, there is no limit to the range of possible associations I might get. Nachman might have said instead, "my Torah is entirely induction", and then we would contrast inductive logic to deductive logic. Deductive logic begins with a single idea and like an upside down tree follows the ramifications of that idea out into the myriad subdivisions and corollaries of that idea. Scientific textbooks usually are written deductively. Inductive logic begins with the vast realm of concrete living awareness experiences and step by step moves up the upside down tree back to a single encompassing idea that strives to somehow include all of the original experiences in its breadth. Francis Bacon in the 14th century championed inductive logic. Theologically speaking, Breslav kabbalah is inductive thinking, while Chabad kabbalah is deductive thinking. Nachman begins with a wide range of Torah texts and trusts in associative links to get to his main points, while Shneur Zalman, author of the Chabad "Tanya", writes an orderly textbook in which he systematically lays out his major and minor premisses. But both authors are using the same tree style thinking. Nachman moves up the upside down tree, while Shneur Zalman moves down the upside down tree, the kabbalistic tree of life on which the "sefirot" (points of view) are hanging like Christmas tree ornaments. For philosophy in general, this tree is th

• published: 04 Aug 2010
• views: 24964