Interview with Jewish Artist Avraham Loewenthal on Capturing the Kabbalah

🌍 The Moment the Brush Stopped Moving

I stood in Avraham Loewenthal’s sunlit studio in Safed’s Old City—stone walls worn smooth by centuries, dust motes swirling above a half-finished canvas where a Hebrew letter Aleph dissolved into spiraling light. He paused mid-stroke, brush hovering, and said quietly: ‘If you want to understand how to capture the Kabbalah in art, start not with symbols—but with silence.’ That sentence rewired my entire trip. I’d flown to Israel expecting a polished interview for a cultural feature; instead, I got a three-day immersion in how spiritual practice reshapes creative process—and why trying to ‘capture’ Kabbalah as a tourist is the wrong framing from the start. This isn’t about decoding esoteric diagrams. It’s about learning when to step back, how to listen before photographing, and why the most authentic encounters happen outside scheduled hours.

✈️ The Setup: Why Safed, Why Now?

I arrived in Safed (Tzfat) in early May—not during the crowded High Holiday season or the summer heatwave, but when olive trees were heavy with tiny green fruit and morning air carried the scent of cardamom coffee and drying lavender. My original plan was straightforward: book a 90-minute studio visit via the Artists’ Quarter Association website, conduct a structured interview about Loewenthal’s series ‘Sefirot Light’, shoot five clean editorial images, and catch the 4:30 p.m. bus back to Haifa. I’d read his 2021 essay in Sh’ma Journal on translating the Tree of Life into pigment and gesture, and assumed his studio would function like a gallery annex—curated, accessible, ready for documentation.1

But Safed doesn’t operate on agenda time. Its rhythm follows prayer cycles, seasonal light shifts, and the unspoken weight of history: this is where Isaac Luria restructured Kabbalah in the 16th century, where every alleyway echoes with centuries of study, and where artists often work in studios that double as study rooms or family kitchens. My confirmation email from the association listed only one caveat: ‘Avraham observes Shabbat from Friday sunset to Saturday night. No visits then. Also: he does not use digital devices during daylight hours.’ I nodded, filed it under ‘logistics,’ and packed my DSLR, notebook, and two fully charged power banks.

🗺️ The Turning Point: When the Calendar Didn’t Match the Clock

My first misstep came at 10:17 a.m. on Tuesday—the exact time my appointment began. I found the studio door closed. A handwritten note in Hebrew and English taped to the wood read: ‘Back at 11:30. Praying at the Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue. Please wait in the courtyard.’ I waited. At 11:42, an elderly man in a black fedora passed me carrying a cloth-wrapped Torah scroll. At 11:58, a young woman in paint-splattered jeans unlocked the door next to Loewenthal’s and gestured me inside her own studio—offering mint tea while I waited. She explained: ‘He doesn’t run on clock time. He runs on kavanah—intentional presence. If he’s praying, he’s praying. If he’s teaching, he’s teaching. The studio opens when the moment is right.’

I realized my ‘interview’ framework was fundamentally incompatible with the subject matter. Kabbalah isn’t a topic to be extracted; it’s a discipline rooted in relationality, restraint, and reverence for hidden meaning. Trying to schedule it like a corporate briefing was like bringing a thermometer to measure wind. That afternoon, Loewenthal arrived—not with apologies, but with two small cups of thick Turkish coffee and a question: ‘What did you notice while waiting?’ I’d noticed the way light fell across the courtyard stones at exactly 11:23 a.m., how the call to prayer from the Mamluk-era minaret vibrated in my molars, how the scent of baking keftes drifted from a nearby apartment. He nodded. ‘That’s where the first layer of the Sefirot lives—not in diagrams, but in attention.’

📸 The Discovery: Beyond the Canvas

Over the next two days, Loewenthal didn’t grant interviews. He invited participation. On Wednesday, he took me to the Ohel Yitzchak Synagogue, not to see the building—but to sit silently for twenty minutes beside a 400-year-old window whose stained glass depicted the Ten Sefirot not as static circles, but as overlapping gradients of cobalt and gold. ‘Look at how the light changes as clouds pass,’ he murmured. ‘Each shift alters the balance between Chesed (loving-kindness) and Gevurah (strength). That’s dynamic Kabbalah—not textbook theory.’

Later, he showed me his sketchbook—not filled with finished compositions, but with pages of repeated, imperfect attempts to draw the Hebrew letter Yud. ‘The Yud is the seed point—the first mark of creation. But no two Yuds are identical. Each one carries the tremor of the hand, the breath before the stroke, the silence after. That’s where Kabbalah enters the body.’

I stopped photographing. Instead, I watched how he mixed pigments—grinding lapis lazuli with gum arabic, adding drops of rainwater collected from his roof gutter (‘because it hasn’t touched the earth yet’), letting each layer dry for precisely 72 hours before applying the next. His studio wasn’t a production space; it was a laboratory of patience. When I asked about commercial reproductions of his work, he smiled faintly: ‘A print flattens time. My paintings hold duration—the hours of waiting, the breaths between strokes, the silence before the first line. You can’t capture that in pixels.’

🎭 The Journey Continues: From Observer to Witness

By Thursday, my notebook held fewer quotes and more observations: how Loewenthal adjusted his palette knife angle depending on whether he was rendering Hod (glory) or Yesod (foundation); how he kept a small bowl of river stones beside his easel—not for symbolism, but because their cool weight grounded his wrist during long sessions; how he never signed a painting until he’d sat with it for three full days, facing east.

I walked Safed’s steep alleys without my map app. I learned to recognize the difference between a shop open for trade and one open for conversation—the former had its door propped wide with a stone; the latter displayed a single framed text from the Zohar near the entrance. I bought handmade shofar polish from a silversmith who taught me how to test its quality by holding it to sunlight and watching for micro-fractures in the horn’s grain. None of it was ‘on the itinerary.’ All of it deepened the context for Loewenthal’s work.

On Friday morning, he invited me to help prepare for Shabbat—not in his studio, but in his home kitchen. We ground spices for challah dough, folded the braids with deliberate symmetry, and placed the loaves on a tray lined with cloth embroidered with the initials of his grandparents. As we lit candles, he said: ‘This is the real Kabbalah—not in books, but in the act of making something whole, then setting it aside to rest. That’s Tikkun Olam in flour and yeast.’

💡 Reflection: What This Experience Taught Me About Travel and Myself

I left Safed with no ‘perfect’ interview transcript and only three usable photographs—none of them of Loewenthal himself. Instead, I carried sensory imprints: the rasp of limestone under my palm on the stairs to the Caro Synagogue; the sour tang of pickled lemons fermenting in a jar on his windowsill; the vibration of the shofar blast echoing off canyon walls during a Friday evening walk. My biggest realization wasn’t about Kabbalah—it was about my own assumptions. I’d approached this trip as a collector: gathering quotes, images, credentials. But Loewenthal modeled receptivity. He didn’t ‘share’ Kabbalah; he created conditions where its presence could be felt—not explained.

That shifted how I travel. Now, I build buffer time not just for transport delays, but for unplanned pauses—waiting for light, listening to a street vendor’s story, sitting through a full prayer cycle even if I don’t understand the words. I’ve stopped asking ‘Can I take a photo?’ and started asking ‘Is this moment meant to be witnessed, or held silently?’ It’s slower. It yields fewer social media posts. But it returns denser, truer material—both for writing and for living.

📝 Practical Takeaways: What Readers Can Apply to Their Own Travels

None of this required special permissions, expensive tours, or insider contacts. It required adjusting posture—not equipment. Here’s what translated directly:

• 🕰️Respect temporal frameworks: In communities where religious practice governs daily rhythm, ‘on time’ means aligned with ritual—not the clock. Check local prayer times (prayer time calculators exist for many faiths), confirm studio or workshop access windows after major observances, and allow minimum 90-minute buffers for unscheduled pauses.
• 🎨Observe before documenting: Loewenthal’s studio had no ‘no photography’ sign—but the atmosphere made it obvious. Before raising your camera, watch how locals interact with space: Do they linger? Bow slightly at thresholds? Remove shoes? Mirror those cues. If unsure, ask ‘Is this a moment for seeing—or for being?’ rather than ‘Can I take a picture?’
• 📜Seek process over product: Spiritual art isn’t about finished pieces hanging on walls. Visit working studios during active hours (early morning or late afternoon, when natural light supports craft), ask about materials and methods—not symbolism—and note how tools are stored, cleaned, or consecrated. The ritual around creation often reveals more than the final work.
• ☕Accept hospitality as curriculum: When offered tea, bread, or shared labor (like folding challah), accept without rushing to ‘document the experience.’ These acts aren’t photo ops—they’re invitations into embodied knowledge. Bring small, locally appropriate gifts (e.g., regional honey, handmade paper) if staying more than one day.

Note: Loewenthal’s studio is not publicly listed for drop-in visits. Access comes through personal introduction, community referral, or multi-day residencies coordinated via the Safed Artists’ Quarter Association. Their website lists general visiting guidelines—but specific access depends on individual artist availability and current observance commitments.

🌅 Conclusion: How This Trip Changed My Perspective

I used to think ‘capturing’ a culture meant collecting accurate representations—quotes, images, historical facts. Safed taught me that some traditions resist capture by design. Kabbalah, like many contemplative disciplines, protects its depth through slowness, selectivity, and relational trust. The most truthful representation isn’t a high-res image of a painting—it’s the memory of light shifting across ancient stone while waiting, the taste of shared bread, the quiet understanding that some doors open only after you’ve learned to stand still. Travel isn’t about acquisition. It’s about alignment. And sometimes, the most valuable thing you bring home isn’t content—it’s recalibrated attention.