Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

Cyberangels Fly from Israel to Birmingham with Biblical Insights on Corona Plague

By Mel Alexenberg

“A lion has roared; who will not fear?” (Amos 3: 8) “Go into your houses, my people, and lock your door behind you; hide for just a moment until the wrath has passed.” (Isaiah 26: 20)

While the frightening coronavirus pandemic requires that you hide in physical isolation away from everyone, the world of smartphones and the Internet invites you to come out of hiding and connect to anyone. People throughout the world look forward to “Awaking and shouting for joy” (Isaiah 26: 19) when the curtain comes down at the end of the plague.

Birmingham Museum of Art

I make the words of the Bible come alive in our age of new media by having cyberangels fly from Israel into the Birmingham Museum of Art and 29 other museums on five continents that have my Rembrandt-inspired artworks in their collections. These virtual flights are documented in my blog Global Tribute to Rembrandt http://globaltributetorembrandt.blogspot.com that pays homage to the great master on the 350^th anniversary of his death.

The cyberangels arrived from Israel at Birmingham Museum of Art through its cafe to illustrate that the biblical words for angel and food are spelled with the same four Hebrew letters to teach that angels are spiritual messages arising from everyday life. My blog post for Birmingham Museum of Art shows that it is 5,951 miles from Jerusalem, Israel; 167 miles from Jerusalem, Alabama; or 0 cybermiles via the Internet Cloud https://globaltributetorembrandt.blogspot.com/2019/09/birmingham-museum-of-art-in-alabama.html.

I am reactivating a cyberangel team that will be led by the angel Raphael to herald the grand finale of the coronavirus plague. The angel Raphael works to heal bodies, minds and spirits. “Raphael” is related to the word rophe, the divine healer in biblical Hebrew (Exodus 15: 26), and medical doctor in contemporary Hebrew. Since the COVID-19 pandemic has closed the museums, I am sending the angel Raphael team to bring healing words to their homebound staff with an image of cyberangels flying into their museums when they reopen.  

Through a Bible Lens

My latest book Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media http://thoughabiblelens.blogspot.com shows creative ways to see the miracles of the new media age through a Bible lens. It was published by HarperCollins Christian Publishing shortly before the coronavirus pandemic erupted. It anticipated the need for spiritual insights for coping with the radical changes in our lives in physical isolation while demonstrating how new media can connect us in virtual space. The book demonstrates to people of all faiths how biblical insights can transform life, in good times and bad, into imaginative ways of seeing spirituality in all that we do.

Birmingham’s Dr. Gerald R. McDermott, distinguished professor at Stamford University’s Beeson Divinity School wrote about my book, “Who would have thought that there would be a way to connect smartphones to the ancient world of the Bible?  Professor Alexenberg has the expertise and experience to do so. This is a unique and fascinating book.”

Dr. Shaun McNiff, author of Earth Angels: Engaging the Sacred in Everyday Life, writes that Through a Bible Lens integrates wisdom about the Bible, creative thought, and cyberangels. “It is the most recent, and arguably one of art’s most complete and compelling integrations of the sacred and profane. It reads like a swift and soulful breeze. I love every “byte” of it.”  Australian theologian Dr. Shimon Cowen, author of Aesthetics and the Divine, called my book “a mystical computer program for spiritual seeing.”

The book’s cover is based upon my artwork in the collection of the Israel Museum that I created in Jerusalem.  It shows cyberangels ascending from a NASA satellite image of the Land of Israel as they emerge from a smartphone screen. It illustrates the biblical commentary that the angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and come down to earth throughout the world. “A ladder was standing on the ground, its top reaching up towards heaven as divine angels were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28: 12) A smartphone has the power to make this vision a reality.

The COVID-19 pandemic that indiscriminately attacks nations throughout the world creates a global village with a shared invisible enemy.  The cyberangels reach out to them “separated into their lands, every one according to his language, according to their families, into their nations” (Genesis 10: 5). They convey God’s message that the nations of the world are not meant to speak one language as in the disastrous Tower of Babel episode.  Each nation has its unique and distinct voice to contribute to the grand planetary choir singing God’s praise as humanity joins together to defeat the deadly coronavirus.

 Foundation of Loving Kindness

The Bible relates how three angels disguised as men, appeared to Abraham while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. One of the angels was Raphael the healer. “Abraham rushed to the tent to Sarah and said, ‘Hurry!  Take three measures of the finest flour!  Kneed it and make rolls!’ Abraham ran to the cattle to choose a tender and choice calf.” (Genesis 18: 6, 7)

A centuries-old biblical commentary explains that Abraham ran after the calf because it ran away from him into a cave that he discovered was the burial place of Adam and Eve. He was drawn to the intense light emanating from an opening at the end of the cave. As he approached, he saw the Garden of Eden through the opening. This deeply spiritual person, the patriarch Abraham, found himself standing at the entrance to Paradise. About to cross over the threshold into the pristine garden, he remembered that his wife and three guests were waiting for lunch back at the tent. What should he do?  Should he trade Paradise for a barbeque? 

Abraham realized that paradise is what we create with our spouse at home.  Other visions of paradise are either mirages or lies. “Enjoy life with the wife you love through all the days of your life.” (Ecclesiastes 9: 9)

During our corona lockdown, Miriam and I create a Garden of Eden for ourselves every day in out small apartment in Ra’anana, Israel. How blessed we are to also live in the age of WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Zoom when we can stay in touch with our children and their spouses, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. After the Passover holiday, our son Moshe made a WhatsApp call to us to announce that his wife Carmit had given birth to Arianna Chana and posted a photo of the beaming parents with their new born baby.

She was born on the seventh day of our counting the 49 days from the time the Hebrews gained their freedom from slavery in Egypt to their receiving the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Each of these days has a different name made up of combinations of the divine attributes in Chronicles 1: 29, “Yours God are the loving kindness, the strength, the beauty, the success, the splendor, and the foundation of everything in heaven and on earth.”  

To be a slave, every day is the same. To be free is to be able to shape each day in a new way. Arianna Chana was born on the day called “Foundation of Loving Kindness.”

The writer is author of the highly acclaimed book Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media. He is former art educaton professor at Columbia University, research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and dean at New World School of the Arts, University of Florida’s arts college in Miami.  In Israel, he was professor of biblical thought and education at Ariel and Bar-Ilan universities and head of Emunah College School of the Arts in Jerusalem.

Captions for attached images:

Cyberangels arrive from Israel at the café of Birmingham Museum of Art as messengers of good tidings

Cyberangels go up from the Land of Israel on the cover of Mel Alexenberg’s highly acclaimed book Through a Bible Lens that offers biblical insights for our new media age

Contact the author: melalexenberg@yahoo.com, +972-52-855-1223 (in Israel)

Sent to Birmingham News and Birmingham Magazine, 28 April 2020