Weekly Chasidic Story #899 (s5775-22 / 27 Shevat 5775)

The Pioneer Chasidic Artist, Part 1

Chenoch "Feter Hendel" Lieberman was an artist who occupied an honored position behind the Lubavitcher Rebbe at prayers, celebrations and lectures.

Connection: Weekly Readings--this week's and next: the beauty of the various tapestries and priestly garments in the Mishkan and the Holy Temple (Ex. ch. 26-28)

The Pioneer Chasidic Artist, Part 1

Chenoch Lieberman was born April 12, 1900 in Polotsk, Russia. His parents, Menachem Mendel Futerfas and Mariashe Bodana, came from a long line of chassidim. As with so many other Eastern European Jewish families, harsh circumstances soon forced the family, with three children, to move, first to Dvinsk, now part of Latvia, and then to Kharkov in the Ukraine.
Menachem Mendel's artistic impulse -- he sketched and played the violin -- was transmitted to his son Chenoch at an early age. At age five, he begged his father for paint and brushes, which he received.

Young Chenoch was a compulsive sketcher and every surface was fair game for his drawings. He later recalled: "I would draw and sketch on books and discourses. I felt a 'soul-need' to draw. I was caught up, mainly, in drawing portraits and landscapes." The walls of his house were soon turned into murals, and even the young boy's prayer books were not safe from the lad's busy pen.
At the age of twelve, Chenoch was sent to the Yeshiva in Lubavitch in White Russia, where he studied at the home of Rabbi Shmuel Gronem Esterman, a noted thinker and teacher in the community.

At about this age, Chenoch's artistic yearnings began to flower. Young Chenoch was attracted to the outside world which beckoned with increasing intensity. He developed a taste for culture, but as a chassidic boy, he knew he was expected to disregard the world of secular style.

For Chenoch, the dilemma appeared irreconcilable: either he remains a Chasidic Jew or he renounces his tradition and enters the "outside" world. The notion that his Chasidism could encompass his artistic temperament did not seem possible.

But these were turbulent times in Russia and individual dramas were soon eclipsed by the massive upheavals of history. Between 1910 and 1920, Russia was shaken by two revolutions, bled by a brutal World War and anguished by famine and disease. The next years were especially difficult for Jews.

The uprooting of families became a regular occurrence, and in 1016 Chenoch and his family relocated again, this time to Moscow.

By 1920, Chenoch was studying art in Moscow and learning the business skills he would need for his family's textile business. Chenoch soon started a family of his own: in 1925 he married Bryna Friedman, and four years later he was the father of two daughters.

But the transformation of Russia into the communist Soviet Union would render his business preparation useless. Stalin's murderous secret police roamed the country and Jewish life became especially precarious. Jewish institutions and rites were forced underground.

Chenoch Lieberman supported his young family by working with his uncle in the oil business, but his passion lay elsewhere. He hungered to paint: it was only in front of a canvas that he felt fulfilled. "What am I to do?" he implored. "I can't help it if G-d gave me a talent."

A turning point occurred in 1927. Lieberman had been bedridden for several months with an ulcer when he was visited by Innocento Zhukov. Zhukov, a well-known sculptor and disciple of the great Rodin, had seen Lieberman's work and wanted to submit one of his paintings to a national art competition. He had his eye on a small Lieberman painting depicting ice skaters on a rink.

Lieberman's painting won first prize and a six-year scholarship for Lieberman to the acclaimed Moscow Academy of Art. Perhaps more importantly, this was the first confirmation for Lieberman that he was a serious artist. He devoted himself to his studies with renewed enthusiasm, surging through his course requirements at the Academy in half the usual time.
Lieberman spent the 1930's employed by the government as a commercial artist. But tragic times lay ahead. In 1939, when he was nearly forty years old, Lieberman was forced to leave his family and join the Red Army's defense against the advancing Nazis. Twice he was wounded in combat, the second time in 1943, in the decisive battle of Stalingrad.

Chenoch Lieberman came home to horror. His entire family - his wife and his daughters, Bluma and Leah - had gone to live with his in-laws in the town of Brayan. There, unprotected from the German onslaught, they had been rounded up by the Nazis, forced to dig their own graves and murdered.

Devastated, Lieberman didn't know where to turn. His own life now in mortal danger, he, along with many others of the Lubavitcher community, sought refuge in Samarkand, the ancient city in Soviet Asia.

Immediately after the war, the Soviet Union issued a prohibition against any Soviet nationals leaving the country. As a means to escape this prison, Chenoch dropped his family name, Futerfas, and adopted the more Polish sounding name, Lieberman. This name would help allow him to "return" to Poland, posing as a displaced Pole.

Together with his mother, sisters, younger brother Mendel Futerfas and wife, Chenoch Lieberman made his way to the border. Though the rest of the party made it safely across, his brother was caught and imprisoned by Stalin's secret police for helping Russians escape the country. He spent the next fifteen years in Soviet work camps.

Poland was a temporary and unpleasant stop for the family; the trek continued westward. Chenoch made his way to Paris and became part of its growing Lubavitcher community, while his family went on to England. The spiritual leader of the Lubavitch chassidim, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, the sixth Rebbe, had settled in New York, and Chenoch Lieberman, his life shattered, sought the Rebbe's counsel about the one thing which still had meaning for him: reconciling his art with his religion.

The Rebbe, always sensitive to people's souls, understood precisely Lieberman's needs and potential: he was an artist, and must recreate the world as he saw it. The artist is driven to imbue the world with his own unique sensitivity and perspective - this was Chenoch Lieberman's calling. The Rebbe explained that for the true Chassid, all aspects of life must be brought together in a larger harmony. The means of serving and understanding G-d are varied, and they include the way of the artist.

Any conflict Lieberman felt between his artistic inclinations and his Chassidic way of life was thus resolved, and he became consumed by painting. Lieberman reached down into his own deep spiritual resources and turned to his work with a renewed vision and enthusiasm. Paris was the ideal city to nourish his artistic inspiration, and Lieberman's painting flourished.

In 1950, Lieberman moved to London to join his relatives. That same year, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, passed away. In his mourning, Lieberman sketched "The Histalkus" ("The Passing" - see link to some of his paintings at end), one of his most powerful pencil drawings. The picture portrays a desolate wilderness with bare, twisted trees, and, as far as the eye can see, black-hatted Chassidim sitting on the ground, their hands held to their heads in grief. In the sky looms the face of the previous Rebbe, and behind him, the shadowy faces of deceased spiritual leaders welcoming the new soul into heaven.

But the burden of history and personal tragedies continued to weigh heavily on Lieberman. He questioned again whether painting was a proper vocation for him, and decided to discuss his situation with the new Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, son in-law of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, also urged Lieberman not to abandon his talent, but to use it in the service of G-d and humanity. In an encouraging letter to Lieberman, the Rebbe captured the essential calling of the artist and encouraged Lieberman to continue and flourish in his career. [Part of the letter is appended below.]
Lieberman did not remain in London for long. He soon moved to the United States and the growing Chassidic community of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, centered around the new Lubavitcher Rebbe.
By the 1950's, Crown Heights had become the new capital of the Lubavitch Chasidic movement. The environment was a breath of fresh air for the developing community of Chasidim. Here they could exercise their way of life in an atmosphere of religious freedom.
Chenoch Lieberman derived great comfort from the religious understanding that Chassidism provided. Now living in physical proximity to the Rebbe, he flourished even more. Here he was, an artist occupying an honored position behind the Rebbe at prayers, celebrations and lectures. Chenoch soon became an important figure in the life of Lubavitch Brooklyn.

Lieberman's Chassidic life became increasingly intertwined with his artistic life. Painting with a renewed intensity, he exhibited in galleries and Chassidic communities around the world, including Australia, where his sister, Brocha Serebryanski, had settled. Another inspirational event for Lieberman was the release of his brother, Mendel Futerfas, from Soviet prison in 1062. Futerfas subsequently settled in Israel and became a spiritual mentor at the Lubavitch Yeshiva there.

The overwhelming majority of Lieberman's work are scenes from the Chassidic environment of his youth. For him, painting the past is not difficult. The faces and scenes from fifty and sixty years ago are distinct vibrant realities. One feels transported into a world which is simultaneously real and make-believe.

As the years progressed, Lieberman's visage became increasingly rabbinical. His once fiery red beard became white and flowing. It struck some as incredibly incongruous that the bearded man in the tallis (prayer shawl) was indeed an artist. But the traditional look of the artist meant less to Lieberman than the look of the traditional Jew.

A nephew, Rabbi Ytzchak Meir Kagan, of blessed memory, remembered this era and the first encounter he had with his great-uncle. "I'll never forget his beard," Rabbi Kagan recalled. "To me, a child of eight, it seemed to be brighter and more flaming than any red I had ever seen. Beneath his bushy eyebrows was a pair of laughing eyes. He was a Chasid - that much was obvious. But my father had told me that he was also an artist. The combination seemed so odd to my brother and me." [Rabbi Kagan grew up to have one of the reddest, longest beards anyone in the next generation ever saw!-Y.T.]

Lieberman lived in Crown Heights for a quarter of a century. He was called "Feter (Uncle) Hendel" (a diminutive of Chenoch) by children in the community and "Maitre (Master) Hendel" by the art students he taught and influenced deeply. Michael Muchnik, who was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design during the 1970's and today is a highly popular chassidic artist, spoke of Lieberman as his main attraction to the Crown Heights Lubavitch community: "More than anything else, it was Lieberman's paintings that made me feel the spirit of Lubavitch, of Chasidism. Seeing his paints made me see the Jewish spirit."

Rabbi Chaim Dalfin, Feter Mendel's great nephew by marriage, recollects Feter Hendel standing on a bench behind the Rebbe at the farbrengens and waving with his hands like a conductor of a symphony. This was done while the crowd sang Chasidic melodies. Feter Hendel actually followed the rhythm of the nigun and expressed it with his hands.

"I remember seeing how the Rebbe would encourage him to do his 'job.' There were times that he did not stand up and conduct. The Rebbe would turn around, notice that he was sitting and motion with a question gesture, why are you not conducting? He would immediately get up and continue his job.

"During the 1970's there were many non-Lubavitcher's attending farbrengens. Some were observant and others not yet. The impression Feter Hendel made on all of them is remembered in a most positive way." (I substantiate - YT)

Chenoch Lieberman fused his Chassidism and painting into a continuous intense life activity. His attachment to Lubavitch permeated his life. An unrelenting joie de vivre sustained and anchored a life beset with terrible personal tragedy and dislocation and Lieberman continued sketching even from his deathbed, sending some very personal, poignant pieces as a present to his Rebbe. After a prolonged stomach ailment, he passed away on Erev Purim, 13 Adar B, 5736 (March 15, 1976).

His paintings hang today in the New York Metropolitan Museum of art, London's Tate Gallery, museums in Paris, and many other places throughout the world. He will always be remembered as the pioneering chassidic artist, the first of his kind to fuse creative expression and chassidic lifestyle. A few samples of his work may be found on the site of the Chai Art Gallery, including the "Histalkus" drawing mentioned above and, arguably, his most famous painting, "Deep in Prayer," recently offered at auction for $50,000.

To be continued next week with a nice story featuring Uncle Hendel and a reproduction.
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Sources: Compiled by Yerachmiel Tilles from:
An article by Joshua Dubrovsky, translated and edited by Shmuel Klatzkin and Felicia Herman for the Chassidic Art Institute of Brooklyn (and subsequently posted on //Chabad.org);
A chapter in the book, Who's Who in Lubavitch, by Rabbi Chayim Dalfin;
An article posted on //Chabadnews.us

Connection: Weekly Readings--this week's and next: the beauty of the various tapestries and priestly garments in the Mishkan and the Holy Temple (Ex. ch. 26-28).

Appendix: Letter from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Chenoch Lieberman.
By the Grace of G d
24 Adar II, 5711 [March 8, 1951]
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Greeting and Blessing:
... I was extremely happy to read that you are working with your artistic talents, are preparing to hold an exhibition, and that you have already received favorable reviews in the press. Surely you will progress in the utilization of the talent that G-d has granted you toward the strengthening of Judaism and G-d-fearing behavior….
I am sure that the genius of the artist in sketching, drawing and painting is his ability to detach himself from the externality of the object he portrays. The artist must be able to look deeply into the inner content of the object, beyond its external form, and to see the inner aspects and essence of the object.
He must then be able to express this 'inner essence' in his portrayal so that whoever views the painting sees revealed for him the inner aspect of the object, an 'essence' which he, the viewer, had never noticed in the object itself, for it had been obscured by non-essential, external aspects. An artist reveals in his art the essence and being of his subject; the viewer examining the result can now see the object in a completely different light and realize that his previous impressions of the object were erroneous. This is how the artist can serve his Creator.
The difficult trials and tests of life are themselves the means by which we are to attain the ultimate object that the soul achieves- the lofty spiritual level it once possessed before it descended into the body.
So you see that life's trials, tragedies and difficulties actually bring us closer to our goal, our raison d'?tre - they are part of the divine system of toil and endeavor enabling us finite mortals to reach the highest levels of reward and goodness which can only be earned by meaningful labor and effort. It follows that one must not allow the difficulties of life's trials (or even one's failure from time to time) to overcome the double joy of being one of G-d's children and of having received his promise.

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Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.

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