trees

The Torah is sometimes called an orchard. The Hebrew for orchard is פרדס (Pardes) and its 4 letters hint at the 4 levels of Torah knowledge depicted here in 4 concentric rings.
 
1.   פשט     פ         Pshat         simple         Scripture      body
2.   רמז       ר        Remez        hinted         Mishnah      heart
3.   דרש      ד        Drash         derived        Talmud         mind
4.   סוד       ס         Sode          secret         Kabbalah      soul

1.  The outermost circle quotes the opening sentences of the first scroll of the Scriptures… more

There is a small grove of ancient olive trees outside of Zefat.  It is about a fifteen-minute walk from my house, after two or three hairpin turns on the dirt road that goes down to Wadi Amud.  I used to like to sit in this grove surrounded by these ancient trees and meditate or study Kabbalah.  These trees were certainly here when Rabbi Isaac Luria was in Zefat in the 16th Century, and maybe he sat and taught his students under these very same trees.
 
I took several photographs of this grove and its trees and made several paintings from the photographs.  For this picture I… more

I painted this picture not long after I made 'The Orchard of the Torah'.  I wrote the 4 letters of the Hebrew word for orchard פרדס (pardes) along the horizontal line dividing the picture in half. 

4 pairs of trees representing the 4 levels of the Torah expressed by the 4 letters of Pardes - פשט - רמז -  דרש - סוד - simple, hinted, derived and secret.draw the eye inward to the center of the picture (as is explained in detail in my description of  'The Orchard of the Torah.')

All the branches and roots that extend from these 4 pairs of trees are  interconnected and joined… more

I painted this picture not long after I made 'The Orchard of the Torah'.  I wrote the 4 letters of the Hebrew word for orchard פרדס (pardes) along the horizontal line dividing the picture in half. 

4 pairs of trees representing the 4 levels of the Torah expressed by the 4 letters of Pardes - פשט - רמז -  דרש - סוד - simple, hinted, derived and secret -.draw the eye inward to the center of the picture (as is explained in detail in my description of  'The Orchard of the Torah.')

All the branches and roots that extend from these 4 pairs of trees are  interconnected and joined… more