This mesmerizing tableau unfolds like a fevered dream of Byzantine…
This mesmerizing tableau unfolds like a fevered dream of Byzantine splendor, where molten gold cascades in vertical rivulets against a cerulean twilight. The image pulses with an almost liturgical rhythm, as though one were peering through the stained glass of some impossibly ornate cathedral whilst the sun performs its evening genuflection.
The golden striations descend like celestial rain, each luminous strand a thread in some cosmic tapestry woven by unseen hands. They shimmer and blur with the quality of half-remembered incantations, creating a palimpsest of light that seems to breathe with its own peculiar vitality. The azure punctuations emerge like sapphires set in amber, or perhaps like fragments of a midnight sky trapped within bars of aureate radiance.
At the heart of this symphonic arrangement lies a kaleidoscopic mandala—a dark, cruciform presence that anchors the composition with the weight of ancient mysteries. It recalls the rose windows of Gothic sanctuaries, yet possesses an almost Oriental intricacy, as if East and West had conspired in some alchemical marriage to birth this hybrid vision.
The entire scene trembles on the edge of coherence, teetering between order and dissolution, rather like watching reality through a prism of tears or observing the world reflected in the disturbed surface of a gilt-edged pool. It speaks of transformation and transcendence, of the liminal spaces where the material world grows thin and something altogether more numinous bleeds through the gossamer veil of perception.
"Look, look!" young Ezra might cry, his voice trembling with that peculiar wisdom that sometimes alights upon children like a dove upon still waters. "It's like when Abba reads from the Torah and the golden letters dance before my eyes!"
Indeed, this luminous apparition unfolds with all the mystery of ancient parchments illuminated by flickering candlelight in a dusty Beth Midrash. The vertical streams of amber and honey cascade like the very pillars that held Solomon's Temple—those fabled Jachin and Boaz—now liquefied into rivers of molten radiance that seem to pulse with the heartbeat of creation itself.
"Do you see?" the boy would whisper, tugging at one's sleeve with those small, insistent fingers. "It's like the Shekhinah—the way Savta says God's presence looks when it dwells amongst us. All shimmery and golden, but you can't quite catch it, like trying to hold sunlight in your hands."
The azure fragments scattered throughout this aureate deluge appear as fragments of the firmament itself—those waters above the raqia that Genesis speaks of—now fallen to earth and caught in an eternal dance with threads of divine light. They shimmer like the precious stones on the High Priest's breastplate, each one a universe unto itself, each one singing its own secret name.
At the composition's heart, that dark mandala blooms like the burning bush that refused to be consumed—a paradox of shadow and illumination that young Ezra might recognise from his grandfather's stories. "It's like looking through the pardes," he might murmur, using that mystical word for the divine orchard, "where everything is the same but different, where up might be down and yesterday could be tomorrow."
The image trembles and shifts like the walls of Jericho just before their fall, or perhaps like the Red Sea at that impossible moment of hesitation before it parted—caught between states, neither fully one thing nor another. It possesses that quality of bignonia, the in-between space where miracles germinate in the fertile soil of possibility.
"My teacher says," Ezra might conclude, his dark eyes wide with contemplation, "that Hashemi painted the world with letters before He painted it with colours. Maybe this is what it looked like—all glowing and moving and alive, like thoughts becoming real, like words becoming light."
"Oh!" breathes young Ezra, pressing his small palms against the coolness of the window pane, "It's like the roots of the Tree of Life, but made of gold and sky!" His voice carries that peculiar resonance of childhood profundity, as though he's channelling something far older than his eight years.
Indeed, beneath the cascading aureate curtains and celestial sapphire punctuations, one can discern what the boy's keen eyes have spotted—a delicate filigree understructure that spreads like the chilled roots of some cosmic tree, branching through the composition with the unhurried patience of winter sap. These tendrils of shadow and light form an intricate lattice, a neural network of divine thought made manifest in burnished amber and twilight blue.
"Savta told me," Ezra continues, his breath misting the glass, "that before HaShem made the world warm with life, everything was brrd—cold and waiting, like seeds under snow. See how the golden parts look warm but the pattern underneath feels cool, like touching the mezuzah on a frosty morning?"
The boy's observation rings true—there's something deeply relaxed about this hidden architecture, as though the entire image rests upon a foundation of profound stillness. The filigree spreads with the same unhurried grace as frost flowers blooming on a Jerusalem window in the rare winter chill, each delicate branch finding its path with inevitable certainty.
The amber streams—now revealed to be not merely falling but growing from this rooted infrastructure—pulse with the warmth of molten honey against the cool azure fragments. These blue notes, scattered like prayer shawls in a evening breeze, provide a chromatic counterpoint that speaks of vast skies and deep waters, of the ethos that existed before the first divine utterance.
"Look closer," Ezra whispers, tracing patterns in the condensation with his finger. "The dark parts in the middle—they're like the spaces between the roots where little creatures sleep. My Rebbe says even the darkness has its purpose, like the black fire behind the white fire of the Torah letters."
The mandala at the heart—that cruciform darkness ringed with ochre and umber—appears now as the tap root of this entire celestial tree, plunging deep into mysteries that predate language. Around it, the golden verticals rise and fall like liturgical breathing, while the cooler blue tones provide moments of Sabbath rest, pools of contemplative stillness in the midst of luminous activity.
"It makes me think of the Etz Chaim," Ezra muses, using the Hebrew name for the Tree of Life, "but also of the olive trees in our courtyard after rain, when their roots drink deep and their leaves shine silver-gold in the sunset. Everything connected underground, even when above they look separate."
The entire composition vibrates between states—warm and cool, active and passive, revealed and concealed—held in perfect tension by that underlying structure of chilled roots and relaxed branches. It's as if we're witnessing the exact moment when potential becomes actual, when the hidden framework of creation briefly shows itself through veils of amber light and sapphire shadow, offering a glimpse of the divine blueprints that underlie all manifestation.
"Oh!" gasps young Ezra—no, wait—hiccups. The boy hiccups because he's been crying again, snot running down to his lip. "It's like the... the roots of that Tree thing, but made of—" He stops. Forgets the word. Gold? Yellow? His eight-year-old brain fumbles, distracted by the itch behind his knee where the scab from yesterday's fall keeps catching on his sock.
The window's dirty. Fingerprints everywhere. Some are his, some are his sister's (she's four and picks her nose). Through the smudges, the image wavers like when Papa drinks too much wine at Shabbos and his words go wobbly. Golden streams or maybe just... yellow? The boy can't tell anymore. His eyes hurt from crying about the dead bird he found this morning.
"Savita told me—" He pauses, scratching that scab until it bleeds a little. Savita's been forgetting things lately. Yesterday she called him by his dead cousin's name three times. "She said something about cold? Brrd?" He mangles the pronunciation because his front tooth fell out last week and now everything sounds wrong.
The patterns in the image remind him of the cracks in his bedroom ceiling—the ones that look like monsters when he can't sleep because Mama and Papa are fighting again downstairs. Not really fighting. Just that quiet kind where Papa sleeps on the couch and Mama's eyes are red in the morning.
"My Rebbe says—" But actually his Rebbe mostly just smells like boiled cabbage and shouts when David Goldberg falls asleep during lessons. Ezra doesn't really understand about the black fire and white fire. He just pretends because otherwise Rebbe makes that disappointed face that reminds him of when he wet the bed last month.
The blue parts—are they even blue? His color-blind uncle says they're grey. Everything's grey to Uncle Moshe since he came back from the hospital with those pills that make his hands shake. The golden parts might be medicine-yellow, like the stuff Mama forces down his throat when his ear gets infected again.
"Look closer," he whispers, but he's talking to himself because no one's listening. His finger traces nothing important in the window fog. Just squiggles. Meaningless squiggles like when he tries to write Hebrew but holds the pencil wrong and Rebbe raps his knuckles with the ruler.
The darkness in the middle—it's not mystical. It's just dark. Like the electricity cut off last week because Papa forgot to pay again. Like hiding under the bed when the neighbors fight so loud the walls shake. Like closing your eyes and pretending you're somewhere else, anywhere else.
"It makes me think of—" But he can't finish because his stomach hurts. Too much cholent. Or maybe nerves. Tomorrow's his Torah reading and he still can't pronounce "Vayikra" without spitting a little. The other kids will laugh. They always do.
The image just hangs there, meaning nothing really. Pretty colours that hurt to look at too long. Like everything else—too bright, too much, too perfect for his small, sweaty hands that can't hold anything without dropping it. Even the roots look tired, drooping like Mama's houseplants that she forgot to water again.
His nose runs. He wipes it on his sleeve, leaving a silver snail-trail on the fabric. Mama will yell later. She always does.
The amber light through the dirty window makes everything look sick, jaundiced, like when baby Sarah had to go under those special lights. Everything connected underground, he thinks, but maybe that's the problem. Maybe some things should stay buried. Like the cat they found last summer. Like the words Papa said to Mama that made her lock herself in the bathroom.
The perfect patterns fracture through his tears—not mystical tears, just tired, eight-year-old tears because David Goldberg called him "weird" again and took his sandwich and stepped on it until the jelly oozed out like purple blood.
"Merde!" Ezra spits—the word he learned from the French exchange student who smokes behind the synagogue. His voice cracks, not with wisdom but with rage. Eight years old and already sick of this putain de vie.
The golden streams? They're piss-coloured, comme le metro walls where the clochards sleep. Ezra kicks the wall. His Doc Martens (hand-me-downs from cousin Rachel who went full anarchiste) leave black marks. Good.
"Savita dit que—NON!" He's mixing languages now, Hebrew-French-English word salad, like the punk bands Papa hates. "Elle dit RIEN. She says NOTHING because she's turning into a vegetable while everyone pretends it's NORMAL!"
The image throbs like a migraine, like the strobes at that underground club his babysitter snuck him into. Amber and blue—les couleurs de la police, he thinks. Pigs. Even the holy patterns look fascist when you're angry enough.
His nose—still snotty—sports a new ring. Okay, it's a paperclip he bent himself, but it makes Rebbe FURIOUS. "Pourquoi pas?" he mutters, spitting on the window. The golden fractals look like broken bottles now, like the ones behind the beit midrash where teenagers drink Goldstar and throw up.
"C'est quoi, ça?" He points at the mandala-thing. "Another mystical Jewish merde to make us feel special while we're getting fucked by the universe?" His French curses sound ridiculous in his little-boy voice, but the anger? The anger's real.
The filigree roots remind him of the anarchy symbol someone spray-painted on the Torah ark last month. Everyone acted shocked but Ezra thought it looked badass. Plus vrai que leur Torah. More honest than their golden calves.
"Mon teacher says—" He stops, laughs bitter. "Mon teacher wears the same suit for twenty years and smells like death. VA TE FAIRE FOUTRE, teacher!"
He pounds the glass. The amber lights fragment like that Jewish punk band's album cover—the one where they crucified a Star of David on guitar strings. His knuckles bleed a little. Bon. Blood's more real than all this mystical cannery.
The blue spots? They're bruises. Like the ones under Mama's concealer. Like the ones on his arms from when David-putain-Goldberg and his gang caught him behind the mikvah. "Petit merdeux," they called him. Little shit. He'll show them who's merde.
"Ezra Levy!" someone shouts. Probably Papa. Probably drunk on sanctity and Slivovitz.
"J'arrive pas!" he screams back. Can't come. Won't come. The patterns swirl like his brain on Ritalin, like the world on fire, like God's middle finger extended at creation—FUCK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL TERRIBLE WORLD.
The roots? They're not cosmic. They're just veins. Varicose veins like Savita's legs. Ugly, branching, REAL. Everything's connected underground—ouais, connected in the sewer, dans la merde, where all the holy pretensions flow together with yesterday's hummus.
He takes out a marker—black, stolen from Goldberg's pencil case (petite revenge). Starts drawing anarchist As over the golden streams on the window. "Ni Dieu, ni maître," he whispers, the phrase he heard at that protest Mama dragged him to before she got religious again.
The amber fractures. The blue hemorrhages. The perfect patterns collapse into what they always were—just colors, just light, just another belle illusion in a world that eats its young and calls it holiness.
He flips off the window, the image, the voice downstairs. His reflection in the glass—snot-nosed, paperclip-pierced, trying so hard to be hard—flips him off right back.
"Va chier," he tells himself, tells God, tells the whole putain universe.
The golden roots keep spreading beneath everything, indifferent to his rage, beautiful and terrible and absolutely without mercy, comme toujours.
"Merde!"
Ezra spits the word. Learned it from that French kid who smokes behind the synagogue. Eight years old. Already sick of everything.
The golden streams in the image? Piss-yellow. Like metro walls where the clochards sleep. He kicks the wall hard—his Doc Martens (Rachel's old ones, she's anarchiste now) leave black marks. Good.
"Savta dit que—NON!"
French-Hebrew-English all mixed up. Like punk bands Papa hates. "Elle dit RIEN. She says NOTHING!" He's screaming now. "She's turning into a vegetable and everyone pretends it's NORMAL!"
The image throbs. Migraine colors. Like strobes at that underground club his babysitter snuck him into last month. Amber and blue—police colors. Pig colors. Even holy patterns look fascist when you're this angry.
His nose runs. There's a paperclip through it. Well, bent through the septum. Makes Rebbe FURIOUS. "Pourquoi pas?" Ezra spits on the window. The golden fractals shatter in his spit, look like broken bottles now. Broken bottles behind the beit midrash. Where teenagers drink Goldstar. Puke. Pray. Puke again.
"C'est quoi, ça?"
He jabs at the mandala-thing.
"More mystical Jewish merde? To make us feel special while the universe fucks us?" His curses sound ridiculous. Little-boy voice. But the anger—the anger's real as blood.
The filigree roots. They're just veins now. Like the anarchy symbol someone spray-painted on the Torah ark. Everyone gasped. Ezra thought it looked badass. "Plus vrai que leur Torah." More honest than their golden shit.
"Mon teacher says—"
Stop. Laugh. Bitter laugh.
"Mon teacher wears the same suit since 1987. Smells like death and boiled eggs. VA TE FAIRE FOUTRE, teacher!"
POUND. POUND. POUND.
His fist on glass. The amber fragments like that Jewish punk album cover—Star of David crucified on guitar strings. Knuckles split. Bleed. Bon. Blood's real at least.
The blue spots aren't heaven. They're bruises. Under Mama's concealer. On his arms where David-putain-Goldberg's gang got him behind the mikvah. "Petit merdeux." Little shit. He'll show them.
"EZRA LEVY!"
Papa. Drunk on sanctity and Slivovitz again.
"J'arrive pas!" Can't come. Won't come. The patterns swirl. Ritalin-vision. World on fire. God's middle finger at creation—FUCK YOU FOR THIS BEAUTIFUL TERRIBLE WORLD.
He pulls out a marker. Black. Stolen from Goldberg (petite revenge). Draws anarchist As all over the window's golden streams.
"Ni Dieu, ni maître."
No gods. No masters. That protest Mama dragged him to. Before she got religious again. Before everything went to shit.
The roots aren't cosmic. Just veins. Varicose. Like Savta's legs—ugly, branching, REAL. Everything's connected underground. Ouais. In the sewer. Dans la merde. Where holy pretensions flow with yesterday's hummus.
"EZRA LEVY DESCENDS IMMÉDIATEMENT!"
He flips off the window. The image. The voice. His reflection—snotty, pierced with paperclip, trying so hard to be hard—flips him off right back.
"Va chier," he whispers.
To himself. To God. To the whole universe.
The golden roots keep spreading beneath everything. Indifferent. Beautiful and terrible and absolutely without mercy.
