Neve Schechter is pleased to host the Libra exhibition at the onset of the New Year. The choice to deal with the balances within art was inspired by the Libra astrological sign of the scales associated with the month of Tishrei.

Was the astrological sign for Tishrei determined because of the Jewish belief that it is in this month that God weighs our good and bad deeds, and decrees our fate?

The assignation of the zodiac signs to the months of the year was determined by the ancient Babylonians according to the constellation of stars visible in the sky during each month and to the forms these resembled in their imagination. They viewed the setting of the moon each month in the map of stars and the constellation in which it set and determined the zodiacal sign for that month accordingly. In this manner, in Tishrei they beheld a cluster of stars resembling the cups of the scales with a stem between them, and the month’s sign was thereby determined. It was not just the form of the zodiac that was influenced by the Babylonian culture however, but also the very nature of the New Year as a holiday on which a person stands before the Heavenly Court to be judged, whether “for grief or grace/for better or for worse”, as described in ‘Untaneh Tokef’, the piyyut read in Ashkenazi synagogues during the Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur prayers: ‘… Remembering all that is forgotten, You open the Book of Remembrance […] Decreeing the length of their days, inscribing their judgment […] How many shall pass away and how many shall be born, who shall live and who shall die…’

The meaning of the Mesopotamian name ‘Tishrei’ (Araḫ Tišritum) is ‘beginning’. In the Babylonian New Year ceremony, held on the first of Tishrei, the head of the Babylonian pantheon – Marduk – born that day, sits in judgment and determines the people’s fate and future for the coming year . The culture of ancient Egypt also features a direct connection between the Libra symbol and the Day of Judgment, the scales in Egypt serving for the weighing of the

deeds of the dead in the hall of the God Osiris. The decree inscribed in the book sealed the fate of the departed souls either for reward or punishment.

Jewish sources, both literary and artistic, also contain a close affiliation between the month of Tishrei and the Libra astrological sign of the scales. The midrash describes it thus: ‘The Holy One Blessed be He created twelve signs of the zodiac and arranged them in the heavens – them, their armies and their regiments and their soldiers and they are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. These are the twelve signs of the zodiac and they serve the twelve months of the year’ . The sign of Libra is listed here as the seventh because, in the bible, the year begins with the month of Nisan and Tishrei is therefore the seventh month . Kabbalistic literature draws a connection between the signs of the zodiac and the organs of the human body. Libra and the month of Tishrei are attributed to the liver, as written in Sefer HaYetzira: ‘He crowned the letter lammed and affixed it a crown and molded in it scales in the world and Tishrei in the year and the liver in the soul’ .

In Jewish tradition, Libra assumed its unique Rosh HaShana significance only in modern times. Thus, for example, Sefer HaToda’ah refers to the month of Tishrei: ‘Because in this month all the world is judged according to human endeavor and virtue is weighed against sin on the scales’ .

The Libra sign subsequently underwent a historical developmental process – from the Babylonians who witnessed the shape of the scales in the heavens to the Jewish perception that sees a connection between the form of Tishrei’s zodiac and God’s weighing of human deeds on Rosh HaShana.

The works selected for the Libra exhibition deal with the New Year, the motif of the scales and justice, and with intra-artistic, cultural, social and family balances present therein. The works provoke renewed contemplation of the concepts of ‘balance’ and ‘tension’ existent in every work of art, in this context set against the background of the High Holidays, that start from the month of Elul and conclude at the end of Tishrei, a period during which Jews reflect on their actions and traditionally attempt to create a balance and harmony between a person and himself, between himself and others, and between himself and God. The works in the exhibition deal with an examination of the territorial-geographic-political-religious balances in Israel; with balance and its price in the world of nature; with family balances and with physical-bodily balances.

Curator: Shira Friedman