HELEN MINTZ BELITSKY
Special to the Jewish News

A

s

a 6-year-old in
Budapest after World
War II, Magda
Rosenbaum addressed
her artwork to God.
Hidden by a Christian family
during the war, she had been
reclaimed by her father at the age
of 2. Her mother, however, was
killed during the liberation.
"I knew she was with God,"
says Rosenbaum, and I needed to
communicate with her. But I did-
n't know the right words. So I
would draw pictures about every-
day life and hide them. They were
my private world. I would look in the
mirror and draw myself. When my
father was angry, I drew an angry
man. The drawings were expressive. I
addressed them to God.
"'If you see my mother,' I would
write to God, 'tell her that things are
not going well in Budapest. Today a
girl refused to sit next to me in school.
She said she couldn't sit next to a
J ew.'''
Rosenbaum, now an artist in Silver
Spring, Md., understands how, as a
child suffering under a post-war
Communist regime, art brought her
closer to God and to her mother. "Art
unlocks our feelings," she says. "Art
.unlocks our innate nature to be happy.
Art enables a child to accept herself
fully."
The world of color is the world of
the emotions, art teacher Rena
Fruchter of Silver Spring, Md., tells
us. Art deals with profound emotions,
she says, such as deep religious feel-
ings.
God is the central fact of Judaism;
it is what our tradition tells us.
Judaism is coherent only if you experi-
ence God as central to that tradition.
But can children experience God that

,

way?

Rabbi Reuben Levine of
Montgomery Village, Md., a Jewish
art historian and a specialist in syna-
gogue and ritual art, suggests that
when parents begin to teach children
about God, "they describe God as the
power behind the creation of the
world."
Children look around them and see
what God created — a blue sky, trees,
flowers, the people they love. They

Helen Mintz Belitsky, a freelance
writer based in the Washington, D.C.,
area, wrote this article for Jewish Family
& Life wwwjewishfamily.com .

9/10

1999

R16 Detroit Jewish News

begin to perceive God through the
music they love. If the composition is
religious, and they like it, they begin
to like God.
"Everything belongs somewhere.
When children sing a prayer, they may
not understand the words," adds
Tasat. "But they know it belongs in
the synagogue. And then it becomes
more than a melody. It becomes some-
thing sanctified."
Children find pleasure in creating
— whether it is a painting, a piece of
music, pottery or a new dance step.
The sense of happiness and personal
fulfillment that comes from creation
brings children closer to their spiritual
selves than any attempt they may
make to concretize God.
Seven-year-old Rebecca Suldan of
Baltimore, Md., expresses it well. "I
once tried to draw God, but God
doesn't look like anything, so I
ended up with a lot of lines. But
sometimes certain feelings bring me
closer to God. When I'm happy I
feel closer to God. When I'm sad, I
feel distant."
The ability to reach into our souls
and communicate our deepest feelings
to others brings us closer to our spiri-
tual nature. The arts are a fundamen-
tal —often the sole — way of com-
municating for many people.
Michael Tilson Thomas, music
director of the San Francisco
Symphony and co-founder and music
director the New World Symphony in
Miami Beach, Fla., writes in his book
Viva Voce: "Music to me is a universal
expression of mankind. We continual-
ly explore the spirit of man through
many different kinds of music."
For Tilson Thomas, the message
conveyed in music is similar to Walt
Whitman's perception of what
Children look around them and see what God created — a blue sky, trees, flowers,
nature offers mankind. In
the people they love. They learn to duplicate these things that God created through
Song of Myself; says
Whitman's
colors and shapes.
Tilson Thomas, "Whitman talks
about walking through the street,
In this way, says Rena Fruchter, art
learn to duplicate these things that
which is littered with leaves, falling
can make a child feel creative and
God created through colors and
leaves, and every single leaf is a mes-
important, closer to God, who created
),
shapes.
sage from God.
the
world.
Art
can
also
be
the
perfect
"Children may not be able to relate
Mayrav Mintz of Silver Spring,
way to introduce children to the con-
to an intangible concept of God," said
Md.,
who began ballet at the age of 4,
cept of enhancing the performance of
Pnina Salu, a religious school principal
learned
the art of friendship through
a mitzva by beautifying the ritual
in Maryland, "but they can appreciate
her
dance
steps, and experienced God
object, adds Levine. "When a child
the nature all around them. They
on
her
shoulder
as she struggled with
creates a beautiful kiddush cup or a
think of that as what God created."
shyness.
challa cover, he or she is coming
"They learn that God took pleasure
"I felt I had friends in the dance
before God with the best he/she has to
in the creation" says Rabbi Levine.
”
class, but I didn't need to talk because
offer.
"And it was good,' God said each
we had steps. Dance broke down the
"Everyone has a different door that
day." Similarly, Levine says, "children
barriers. ... I always believed in God as
opens
the
way
to
God
for
them,"
says
can find pleasure in the creation of
a friend who sat perched on my shoul-
Cantor Ramon Tasat of Agudas Achim
colors and shapes. That sense of fulfill-
der. God was something my size. I was
Congregation in Alexandria, Va. He
ment is the product of a creativity
nervous and shy, but things would be
spends a great deal of time teaching
which is human, but which is also a
OK because God was around." Fl
children music. "I know children who
gift from God."

The sense of happiness and personal fulfillment
that comes from creation brings children
closer to their spiritual selves than any attempt
they may make to concretize God.

A Pathway

To God