November 2009, Gun Control

and enjoy some home cooking. But as I stood in services, bringing to bear the focus and concentration I had learned through meditation, I felt answered; I felt not alone. Not in a wacky sense of hearing voices, of course, but in a real sense, unjustifiable by any rational measurements. This moment of brushing up to devekut, a clinging closeness with God, was the payoff for my years of sensing energy and expanding awareness in a controlled way, through the practice of meditating — of channeling experiences through the liturgy rather than approaching the liturgy as an intellectual or abstractly spiritual practice.

I am finishing rabbinical school now at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los

Angeles. My teacher, Rabbi Elliot Dorff, introduced me at long last to the word “arational” — not something rational and not something “ irrational” as in senseless, but something that simply falls outside the paradigm of rationalism. Mysticism, which is the term I have used to describe my relationship with Judaism and the world, is “arational.” I never knew the word until recently, but I had to find its meaning on my own. Rationalism was the idol of my parents — their worldview and their engagement with Judaism. It was the idol I had to destroy in order to become the person my Creator meant me to be. And it has provided an extremely fine grounding for studying rabbinics — even those areas most rational.

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Yona Verwer

Protection Amulet — Pewter

From the series “Kabbalah of Bling” acrylic on canvas with chain

“The Kabbalah
of Bling”

YONA VERWER

This series, “The Kabbalah of Bling” fea- tures canvasses shaped as large-scale modern “amulets,” hung on chains, and ready to wear.

For centuries amulets have been used as appeals to heaven for safety, health, wealth, and power. Currently many people rely on different types of talismans — worshipping guns, drugs, money, media, and art for their personal and social wellbeing; some deny the need for guidance of any kind.

These paintings comment on the way Kabbalah has been misused lately (appropriated as it has been by pop icons) and also on contemporary notions of religion. These “amulets” reflect on this contemporary concept of self-reliance and the faux spirituality found in the worship of objects for their own value.

Yona Verwer

Protection Amulet — Gold

From the series “Kabbalah of Bling” acrylic on canvas with chain

Dutch-born artist Yona Verwer received her MFA from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. Her recent paintings and photographs feature mystical Jewish imagery as well as amulet-shaped objects and portraits.