Future on a Canvas   

This was Baruch Nachshon’s art gallery, living room, and on Shabbos, his shul — the sefer Torah safely tucked away behind a velvet curtain. Nachshon, a pioneer of contemporary chassidic art, chassid of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and, together with his wife Sarah yblch”t, a leading force behind the re-establishment of the ancient Jewish community of Chevron following the Six-Day War, passed away Erev Yom Kippur at age 82. But his spirit lives on in the homes of thousands, their walls still radiating the fire in his nefesh as his canvases fused ancient wisdom with the tangible images of a glorious future.

When we met three years ago, it was on his terms. He entered the room wrapped in a tallis and tefillin, and I remember wondering if he was real, or if he was an apparition who had somehow stepped out of one of the paintings surrounding me. He was slim and tall, with a long beard that had turned white years ago, a pair of piercing eyes that peered through glasses, and topped with his trademark black beret.

He didn’t want to speak with tefillin, so he just proffered five long artists’ fingers and went back to finish davening in his private shul.

As he sat down to eat his organic breakfast, he told me how he’d rarely leave his home, a 15-minute walk from the Mearas Hamachpeilah. “My business is about concentration,” he told me, “so I try to avoid distractions. I don’t go to weddings or participate in events or gatherings. When I go to the city, the frenetic pace disturbs me. The cars speeding on the roads continue speeding in my mind for a long time afterward. Here, in the city of our Avos, I have quiet and focus.”