Grigorescu, Felicia: Forme de artă în cimitire evreieşti din nord-vestul Romaniei (Satu Mare, 2013)
Glosar de termeni
In the Jewish cemeteries in North-West Romania, we can find ornamental vessels with an unequal distribution. They appear especially in the Jewish cemetery from Baia Mare, where they have great dimensions and in the new Orthodox cemetery in Oradea (Pic. 68). 3. Decorative phytomorphic elements Very frequent in the entire Judaic art, the vegetal motifs also belong to those arguments that are proofs of the deeply identitary character of the aesthetic manifestations of Judaism. It is absolutely amazing and noble how the Jews knew to promote those decorative motifs that kept them bound to such a temporally and territorially distant history. This fact was only possible through an incessant learning and teaching of the Law, which was made from father to son. Through the written text, which was carried by them through the sinuous exile, the Jews have known the plants of their country of origin, plants that they represented on the majestic monuments that now impress an entire European critique, which has long ignored them, but also on the humble modest of hundreds of rural cemeteries, on whose fronton some anonymous carver wanted to incise a modest identitary Jewish sign. The most frequent vegetal motifs found in the cemeteries of the present study are the ones clearly enumerated by the Bible: Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as [it is] written124. At the blessing of Israel, the Lord makes the following description: I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. The definition of the country, the house itself, the balance and peace, the prosperity are identified by the country’s flora: And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, all the days of Solomon. The phytomorphic shapes also belong to the representation of symbols other than the expressly phytomorphic ones, as for instance the realization of the menorah’s arms out of branches, leaves or spindles, or even of the antlers. The Tree of Life. A symbol which is present in all religions all around the world, in the Hebraic esotericism, the tree of life goes downwards and the sun lights it entirely125. Starting with the Genesis, the Tree of Life appears very frequently in connection with the separation of the worlds: ...Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...126. The Tree of Life exists on Earth, but is not destined to human usage; there is an interdiction which forbids the mortal from approaching the divine. The Tree of Life hides that wondrous secret of immortality to which the human can only aspire. This is probably the most common symbol of the separation between the human and the divine: And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that 124 Ibidem, Nehemiah 8:15 12:1 Chevalier, Gheerbrant, D.S., voi. I, p. 126 126 The Bible, Genesis, 3:22 134
