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by Dan Mac Alpine
The figure wears a yellow robe, arms spread in the blue sky among white stars.
The painting represents artist Gina Tzizik’s Kabbalah journey, an inner trip to discover creations she makes accessible with the stroke of her brush and her color choices.
“Sometimes I make my own colors. I love color,” said Tzizik, whose paintings “go beyond technique.” Focus on her color or brushwork and you miss the glimpse into Tzizik’s view of the world and of the universe. “Where is the mystical quality?”
Kabbalah teachings started in Jewish mysticism in the first century of the common era. Some would argue that Kabbalah began at the start of time and hopes to explain the Hebrew Bible, Jewish teachings, and Jewish observances.
“Love and kindness” lie at the heart of all Kabbalah teachings, said Tzizik, who lives on Mineral Street and had a two-woman show in mid-July at the Hall-Haskell House.
Until the last few years, women weren’t allowed to study Kabbalah. So deep were the truths revealed that men had to be over 40 and have studied the Torah in order to be mature enough to handle what Kabbalah taught.
Tzizik has studied the Torah and is over 40, but is a woman. Two out of three’s not bad, as the saying goes.
In fact, Tzizik holds two different master’s degrees, one in Montessori education and one from Hebrew College in Newton, where she studied the Kabbalah for the last four years.
“The Kabbalah says you have light,” said Tzizik. “What are we supposed to do in life? I’m painting.”
