Parshat Noach: The Greatest Artist that Ever Lived - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

any recorded medium-heat video or sound has a tremendous advantage and a serious drawback and ironically they're both the same in the concert hall the singer has only one chance to hit that top note if he blows it that's it in the recording studio the possibility exists to go on for that top note ad infinitum and often ad nauseam as in so many things possibility commands necessity let's just give it one more take the road to insanity is paved with the millstones of perfectionism worse however perfectionism very often leads to mediocrity a well-known record producer used to quip in the studio let's improve it till it's dreadful he told me that whenever he finished the record there were parts with which he was less than satisfied maybe a certain instrument could have been loud or a soft or a piece of the vocal wasn't quite smooth enough ironically if the record became a hit often those parts were the parts that made the record original and unique one of the prerequisites of being a good artist is knowing how to get part of your own way all creation begins with imitation but if R never escapes imitation its doomed to plans it will never be more than a recapitulation of what's preceded it great art has the ability to leave do down the path of the familiar and then reveal something you'll never dream the greatest artist who ever lived was called pencil L but SEL L built the Mishkan the temple in the desert after the Jewish people left Egypt the greatness of but Sal's creation was that he succeeded in doing what every artist dreams of doing to make heaven dwell on earth to make the spiritual dwell within the physical the Mishkan was the way in which the Shekinah the divine presence became apparent in this world as a mystical concept that God created the universe using the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet but salão knew how to take those letters those building blocks of creation and with mystical cover not you probably call that directed thoughts in English he would combine them to create God's dwelling place on earth similar to the way that God Himself created the whole universe with those same letters but Sal's name means in the shadow of God but sale kale the greatest artist is someone who can get out of his own way and allow God to paint the picture he makes himself a shadow of something infinitely greater it says in this week's Torah portion may God extend the effort but he will dwell in the tents of Shem Noah Noah Noah son japhet was the father of Yvonne the founder of ancient Greece the Jewish people are descended from Shem Greece and all its gifts of the world aesthetics poetics drama that is the depiction of the world as it looks from the outside in finds its true purpose when he effete dwells and the tents of Shem when art dwells in the tents of time it is the Torah that gives us a view of the world from the inside the greatest art comes when the artist recognizes that he is merely a tool in the hands of the artist of a chef [Music] [Applause]