One of the many extraordinary experiences we had this month while in Israel was visiting the Chagall windows in the Hadassah Medical Center on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem.  The beauty and artistry in the 12 windows, one for each of Jacob’s sons,  have been on display in a synagogue within the Medical Center since their installation in 1962 after being displayed at the Louvre and at MOMA in the previous two years.  Chagall was commissioned by Hadassah and the architect of the medical center in 1959 and he eagerly accepted the challenge of translating the Biblical passages with the blessings of Jacob and Moses for the 12 sons in Genesis and Deuteronomy into stained glass.

Upon our return to Cambridge, my wife discovered this book among our art library where it had sat since her parents had given it to us many years ago.  The book is a masterful exploration of the 12 windows.  Beginning with an introduction which describes how Chagall, born in a small shtetl in Russia in 1889 came to embrace and execute this work.  Living in Paris, the US, and finally Provence as well as making important visits to Israel in 1931, 1951, and 1957, Chagall was deeply in touch with the Hebraic mysticism of the Hasidism as well as the detailed histories, biographies, and prophecies of the Torah and the other books of the Hebrew Bible.  Translating those stories into the color and light of the windows was a masterful work.

The book provides illustrations of Chagall’s process with each full page photograph of the completed window accompanied by the first sketch in pencil, pen and India ink, the preparatory drawing, the first color sketch using watercolors, and the small and final models using gouache and collage.  There is also a brief summary of the Biblical passage which was the source of Chagall’s inspiration as well as a description of each son’s blessing and how that translated into the images in the window.  The result was a much deeper understanding of the legacy of Jacob and his two wives (Leah mothered 6 sons while Rachel was the mother to 2 and both Leah’s and Rachel’s maidservants were mothers of an additional four sons) as well as how the 12 tribes located throughout Eretz Yisrael and adopted ways of life from farming to judging to war.

If you have any opportunity at all, go to see these wondrous works of art, and if at all possible, read this book first and perhaps even dive into Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33.