ROSH HASHANAH

52 | SEPTEMBER 22 • 2022 
 
 
 
 

W

hat does the sound of 
the shofar look like if 
it were a piece of art? 
Metro Detroit native Avraham 
Loewenthal has been making 
paintings of the pattern of the 
shofar sounds for many years. He 
uses software that analyzes the 
sound waves of the shofar and 
then makes art inspired by the 
resulting images.
Loewenthal grew up in 
Southfield, attending Akiva 
and Hillel for grade school 
and Southfield-Lathrup for 
high school. His parents were 
founding members of Young 
Israel of Southfield, which he 
attended while growing up. 
He studied psychology at the 
University of Michigan and then 
studied painting at the School of 
the Art Institute of Chicago.
While at U-M, he became 
intrigued by Eastern meditation 
and yoga. “I was thinking of 
going to an ashram in Ann 
Arbor and spoke about it with 
Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg, 
who was the rabbi of Young 
Israel of Southfield and a family 
friend,
” Loewenthal said. “Rabbi 
Goldberg recommended I read 
the book Jewish Meditation by 
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. I had never 
heard of Jewish meditation and 
the book was life-changing for 
me. 
“Instead of going deeper into 
Eastern meditation, my interest 

to learn more about Jewish 
meditation was sparked … I 
began to read other books Rabbi 
Kaplan wrote about Kabbalah. 
I didn’t know anything about 
the inner spiritual wisdom of 
Judaism and starting to learn 
about it was exciting.
” 
At age 25, Loewenthal finished 
art school in Chicago and went 
to Israel on a six-month artist 
program in the south. 
“
At the end of the program 
I came to the holy city of Tzfat 
for Shabbat,
” he said. “I, like so 
many other people, fell in love 
with this amazing place. I have 
been blessed to be living here for 
almost 30 years. “
Loewenthal lives in Tzfat with 
his wife, Rebecca, who is from 
Maryland. They met down the 
block from where they now live 

in the Old City Artist Quarter. 
They have three children. 
“Since coming to Tzfat, I 
have been learning Kabbalah 
and making art inspired by the 
spiritual learning. Above our 
home in the Artist Quarter, 
I have a studio and gallery 
called Tzfat Gallery of Mystical 
Art. Many tour groups come 
to the gallery where I give 
an introduction to Kabbalah 
discussing the paintings inspired 
by these ideas,
” Loewenthal said.

MAKING THE 
AUDITORY VISUAL
Loewenthal explains that the 
Kabbalah describes how the 100 
sounds of the shofar we blow 
on Rosh Hashanah have deep 
spiritual information encoded in 
them. “Each progressive sound 
represents deeper levels of love 
and spiritual awareness,
” he said.
For example, he said, “The 
whole long sound of tekiah 
expresses inner joy and 
thankfulness. The three broken 
cries of shevarim express 
brokenness. The teruah, so 
broken it is whole, is the prayer 
from the depths of our heart 
revealing the always-flowing 
Divine goodness. The final, very 
long sound of tekiah gedolah 
represents unconditional love 
and oneness.
”
 
LEARNING KABBALAH
“The Sages say in a Midrash, 
‘Before the coming of the 
Mashiach, Eliyahu the Prophet 
will go to the top of a mountain 
and blow the shofar to announce 
the coming of the Redemption,
’” 
Loewenthal said. 
 “People imagine Eliyahu 
the Prophet standing on the 
mountain top blowing the shofar. 
The great Kabbalah master, the 
Baal HaSulam, explains, however, 
that the coming of Eliyahu 
means simply the inner spiritual 

Metro Detroit native makes art in Israel 
inspired by spiritual learning.

Sounds
the
of
Shofar

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

continued on page 54

Avraham Loewenthal

