Alexenberg in the garb of Rembrandt's friend Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel in Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam |
See article in Times of Israel Cyberangels Honor Rembrandt on his 350th Yahrtzeit.
My wife Miriam whose native tongue is Dutch tells me that Rembrandt would recognize the Dutch word jaartijd for "date of death." It is pronounced in English yahrteid. It sounds like the Yiddish word yahrzeit, the word I use in the title of my Times of Israel article since it expresses the concept in Judaism that a person should be honored on the day he died rather than on his birthday. It’s like applauding after seeing a great play when the curtain comes down rather than when it goes up when we don’t yet know the story.
I present the conceptual background for the Global Tribute to Rembrandt in my highly acclaimed book Through a Bible Lens. See praise for the book from experts on art and digital culture and Jewish and Christian spiritual leaders at Israel365. On the book’s cover, cyberangels spiral up from a NASA satellite image of Israel as they emerge from a smartphone screen. It is based on my serigraph “Angels Ascending from the Land of Israel” in the collection of the Israel Museum.
Alexenberg's Rembrandt inspired serigraph "Angels Ascending from the Land of Israel" in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem |