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Friday November 10, 2006

Portraits of a rabbi

Waldenberg puts on first exhibit of his paintings

by dan pine
staff writer

Shelley Waldenberg may be 70, but he’s about to have a big coming-out party — coming out as a fine portrait painter.

The retired rabbi and former long-time spiritual leader of Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah is literally putting the finishing touches on the first-ever public exhibition of his art.

About 22 Waldenberg canvasses –– some dating back to 1989 –– will be on display at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center in Walnut Creek through November, coinciding with the Contra Costa Jewish Book Festival.

Just because this is his first official show doesn’t mean he’s a Monet-come-lately to art. Waldenberg has been drawing and painting his entire life, including throughout his career as a rabbi. So it’s no surprise he would see some similarities between the two disciplines.

“Painting,” he says, “like working as a rabbi, requires me to pay attention to the inner life of another person. That’s what rabbis do and that’s what you do when you paint: look behind the face, beyond the geometry of a gesture.”

Most of the paintings in this show are portraits, some of them private commissions on loan. Others have overt Jewish themes, such as his depiction of Shulamit from the Song of Songs, and his conception of Job. He says sometimes when painting a portrait, the look on the sitter’s face may evoke in his mind images from the Torah.

“As I look at whomever is sitting before me, all kinds of feelings emerge: joy, fear, contentment, struggle, triumph, loss. I try as a rabbi and a painter to focus on those emotions that are powerful and meaningful, and are so often eclipsed or go unnoticed in the frenetic lives we live.”

For years, as a rabbi, he helped others cope with their own frenetic lives. He grew up in New York, attended NYU and later Hebrew Union College. After ordination he served as a Germany-based U.S. Army chaplain during the Vietnam era, taught at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and then came to Temple Isaiah in 1972. He retired as rabbi emeritus 19 years later.

For the past 11 years the Oakland resident’s professional focus has been in the classroom, teaching Jewish and biblical studies at Holy Names University in Oakland. Over the last six years he has also worked with the American Jewish Committee, sharing Jewish values and history with Catholic high school students around the Bay Area.

But he did not neglect his passion for art during that time. He has studied at the Art Student League in his native New York and locally at California College of the Arts in Oakland.

Though he has done his share of still life and landscape painting, Waldenberg finds himself most drawn to portraiture.

“Each painting is a conversation,” he says. “In these paintings, light and color and form are intended to lead the viewer toward a profound and private place. Through these eyes I find myself capturing a moment in myself. Feelings, memories and journeys that perhaps are universal. Things you see in others open up parts of yourself to yourself.”

Somehow, Waldenberg managed to keep the two aspects of his life completely separate. That’s why he’s both excited and a bit nervous about merging the two with his Contra Costa show.

But he’s the first to admit he’s been lucky, having led two successful and gratifying careers simultaneously.

Successful, yes, but not without their share of awkward moments. Waldenberg recalls the time a potential client interviewed him about painting a portrait of his wife.

Says Waldenberg: “The comment I remember was, ‘If we don’t like it, we’ll put it in the closet.’”

Rabbi Shelley Waldenberg’s art will be on display throughout the month at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center, 2071 Tice Valley Blvd., Walnut Creek. Information: (925) 938-7800.

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