
"Hearken Unto Her Voice" 100cm by 80cm
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"Hearken Unto Her Voice" (Genesis 21, 12)
This work of the artist, Odem, describes a Biblical picture and its current parallel. In the picture we can see Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar with Ishmael in her arms.
The artist has needed to paste a collage characterizing the perpetrator of the lynch in Ramalla, with his two blood-soiled hands and an expression of 'making sport' on his face. He has added an inscription in Russian about Ishmael's glee at Jewish blood being drawn, because both the soldier and witnesses of the "Ramalla lynch" were Russian immigrants, as were also many of the victims of the murder at the Dolphinarium and other terrorist actions.
In the bottom left-hand corner of the picture we can see Mother Sarah in the character of a nurse already familiar -- through divine inspiration -- with the Midrashic interpretation of the word 'making sport' meaning 'bloodshed'. Sarah displays pity for her daughters and her sons as, for example, the baby Shalhevet Paz; she sincerely wishes to arrest bloodshed and to prevent Shalhevet from becoming the blood-bride of the Land of Israel. Rather let her be a bride under the marriage canopy. Sarah is persuading Abraham to remove Hagar and Ishmael.
The artist expects Divine intervention -- "And they that spoil thee shall be a spoil" - to stand by him in these hard times. The name of the blood-bride, Shalhevet, is documented in red.
Abraham represents the benevolence and the mercy shown towards the Arabs, and this is the way of thinking among the 'Israeli left-wing' whereby a nation returning to its land after 2000 years of expulsion, exile and oppression fears to treat an Arab just as it was treated in the Diaspora; the killing of our children leaves them non-plussed.
Sarah, on the other hand, represents the 'Midrashic' right-wing that realizes the Arab murderer in the young Ishmael - "And Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne unto Abraham, making sport" (meaning 'blood-shed') (Genesis 21, 9)
"The matter distressed Abraham greatly, for it concerned a son of his" (Genesis 21, 11) Abraham with his loving-kindness was wrong, and the Divine decision, " Hearken unto her voice" is final.
In the center of the picture appears a collage depicting the "Sabaro" restaurant in Jerusalem after the terrorist incident. These incidents constitute the watershed line between the descent of the mosques on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Arabs, and the ascent of the candelabra and the Temple in preparation for the delivery of Israel and the strengthening of the bond with the Temple and the Temple Mount for the Jews, in preparation for their redemption.
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