Jewish ​Art 0 csillagozás

It must be admitted, nevertheless, that except, perhaps, in one or two isolated cases, it does not bear comparison with the extraordinary achievements of European religious art in general of the period. There are many reasons for this. Poverty, tension and destruction must all be taken into account. But there is a more fundamental point. The synagogue was essentially a place of intimate prayer; it was not a place of assembly for a dramatic public function. Public worship among the Jews had at its focal point the Scroll of the Pentateuch, not the altar at which the perpetual miracle of the Mass was performed. The Scroll demanded ineded meticulous penmanship and received deferential treatment. But the appurtenances of public worship, not being associated as among the Christians with the conception of the actual Divine presence, did not impose such elaborate treatment. Scholarship, or charity, was the highest form of service. It was more meritorious to provide bread for the poor, or books for the student, than adornments for the synagogue. The centrality of cult-objects, which was almost fundamental to Christianity and was thus responsible for the finest artistic achievements of the Middle Ages, was hence absent in Judaism. Jewish life gained in warmth what the synagogue lost in artistic beauty.

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