I received the text below in an e-mail and this You Tube video is worth the eight minutes it will take you to view it. I have not verified the text that came with the e-mail, but regardless of the text, you can see from the video that this woman is participating in a competition that resembles a "Got Talent" type show, and what she is able to create is pretty powerful.
This video shows the winner of 2009’s " Ukraine ’s Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.
Use this link to watch this brilliant preformance: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg#t=00
The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to tears and she won the top prize of about $75,000.
She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.
It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.
She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.
This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.
In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.
The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.
An art critic said:
"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art, especially when the war is used as the subject matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there’s surely no bigger compliment."
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
A Festival of Joy
I just finished frying about 120 latkes. Our chavurah is coming over on Sunday for a little Chanukah party, so I need to finish cleaning the house. For a whole host of reasons, the gifts for the boys are still not wrapped. And I need to throw in a load of laundry so the Shabbat clothes are ready to go. Thank goodness for crockpots, because at least Shabbat dinner is busy cooking itself on my countertop!
Daily craziness can sometimes be overwhelming, but at holiday times, to do lists grow exponentially and getting to everything you need or want to do can be a huge challenge. It is easy to lose the joy. But, at Chanukah time, I am determined that even with all of the things I have been busy with and will continue to be busy with, that I will not lose the joy.
There are of course the easy reasons to be joyful. Eating fried latkes - pure bliss. Watching my boys' faces light up when they open their gifts - well there is truly nothing better than their smiles. Spending time with family and friends - priceless. And chocolate gelt - enough said.
But there is a deeper reason for my joy during this holiday. The word Chanukah means dedication. When you look up dedicate in the dictionary, one of the meanings listed is “to become committed to as a goal or way of life.” For a long time, I only really focused in a formal way on what I will commit to and how I want to live my life at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. At the High Holy Days, I spend a great deal of time reflecting, analyzing, thinking, and reviewing the previous year to prepare for the new year and to atone. But several years ago, it occurred to me that while Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur seem to me like the big final exam to end one year and prepare to begin the next, Chanukah is like the first report card of the new year. It’s a time to think about how things are going and to analyze if I am making the grade with my own personal goals.
We all dedicate ourselves to so many things in life - our family, our friends, our synagogues, our jobs, our volunteer activities, etc. Chanukah is a great time to reflect on what we have accomplished, what we have yet to accomplish and to think about what we need to rededicate ourselves to.
As I have thought back on the past few months and all that has happened since Rosh Hashanah, I can honestly say that I have mostly accomplished that which I wanted to by this point in time. However, there are two fairly sizeable promises I made to myself that I have not kept thus far. Taking the time to reflect has given me back a renewed commitment to making these things happen. For me, there is a tremendous amount of joy that comes from that. There are always the "have to do's" in life. But reexamining your own personal priorities and getting them back to the forefront so that you can take of them as well, now there's an added reason to celebrate during this holiday.
So over the course of the next eight days, as you watch your dreidels spin and the flames on the candles in your menorah dance, I hope that you take some time to set aside your daily to do list and to reflect. I hope you feel happy for the dedication you have shown in this year to date and I hope you feel even happier when you decide what you need to rededicate yourself to because that is the first step to making it all happen.
Wishing you much joy this Chanukah!
Daily craziness can sometimes be overwhelming, but at holiday times, to do lists grow exponentially and getting to everything you need or want to do can be a huge challenge. It is easy to lose the joy. But, at Chanukah time, I am determined that even with all of the things I have been busy with and will continue to be busy with, that I will not lose the joy.
There are of course the easy reasons to be joyful. Eating fried latkes - pure bliss. Watching my boys' faces light up when they open their gifts - well there is truly nothing better than their smiles. Spending time with family and friends - priceless. And chocolate gelt - enough said.
But there is a deeper reason for my joy during this holiday. The word Chanukah means dedication. When you look up dedicate in the dictionary, one of the meanings listed is “to become committed to as a goal or way of life.” For a long time, I only really focused in a formal way on what I will commit to and how I want to live my life at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. At the High Holy Days, I spend a great deal of time reflecting, analyzing, thinking, and reviewing the previous year to prepare for the new year and to atone. But several years ago, it occurred to me that while Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur seem to me like the big final exam to end one year and prepare to begin the next, Chanukah is like the first report card of the new year. It’s a time to think about how things are going and to analyze if I am making the grade with my own personal goals.
We all dedicate ourselves to so many things in life - our family, our friends, our synagogues, our jobs, our volunteer activities, etc. Chanukah is a great time to reflect on what we have accomplished, what we have yet to accomplish and to think about what we need to rededicate ourselves to.
As I have thought back on the past few months and all that has happened since Rosh Hashanah, I can honestly say that I have mostly accomplished that which I wanted to by this point in time. However, there are two fairly sizeable promises I made to myself that I have not kept thus far. Taking the time to reflect has given me back a renewed commitment to making these things happen. For me, there is a tremendous amount of joy that comes from that. There are always the "have to do's" in life. But reexamining your own personal priorities and getting them back to the forefront so that you can take of them as well, now there's an added reason to celebrate during this holiday.
So over the course of the next eight days, as you watch your dreidels spin and the flames on the candles in your menorah dance, I hope that you take some time to set aside your daily to do list and to reflect. I hope you feel happy for the dedication you have shown in this year to date and I hope you feel even happier when you decide what you need to rededicate yourself to because that is the first step to making it all happen.
Wishing you much joy this Chanukah!
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