Finding solace in the wisdom of King Solomon: Avner Moriah's work on 'Ecclesiastes'

When Hamas savagely attacked Israel last October 7, artist Avner Moriah, like the rest of the country, was in a state of disbelief, numbed to the point of being unable to begin illuminating the Book of Ecclesiastes, a project he had been determined to pursue last year, upon turning 70.

Just the day before, Israel had marked the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, in which Moriah had served as a young cadet, fighting in the Sinai. But last October, he realized that at his age he was unable to influence the course of the horrific events that were unfolding.

Instead, Moriah deliberately created an insulated environment by disconnecting from the constant news stream and turning on recordings of Italian operas to help in creating his art. Finally, after the first week of the Israel-Hamas war, this arrangement enabled him to focus on illustrating the monumental biblical book of wisdom.

“I just stayed in my home in Har Adar,” he recalled. “Transitioning from the paralysis of those first few days of the war to a creative mode was challenging.”

Art about the Book of Ecclesiastes

Until his 70th birthday, Moriah had never been preoccupied with the passing of time or his own mortality. But as he entered his eighth decade, the Book of Ecclesiastes took on new meaning for him. 

“It occurred to me that we all have an expiration date,” reflected the silver-haired artist, whose two knee replacements last year were a jolting reminder of the vulnerabilities that come with aging. “We come and we go.”

As his momentous birthday approached, he resolved to undertake the Ecclesiastes project since he “still possessed physical stamina and mental acuity – two essential components for creating captivating art.”

The result is a dramatically illuminated book created almost exclusively with black watercolor, which Moriah completed this past summer, that brings visual shape to the insights of the book’s author. According to tradition, the Book of Ecclesiastes (Koheleth in Hebrew), one of the five megillot of the Bible, was written by King Solomon and is read in synagogues on the Shabbat of Sukkot. Its 12 chapters are laden with observations on life’s vicissitudes, its fleeting nature, and poignant truisms that have reverberated throughout the ages. 

Although many of Moriah’s other monumental biblical works are suffused with color – for instance, his Book of Esther, awarded two Guinness World Records for the longest and the largest scroll in existence, is replete with luscious hues – Moriah opted not to use color in his rendition of Ecclesiastes, explaining that it would have detracted from the messages of the verses.

“I wanted each drawing to express the essence of what the verse means. Color would have been a distraction,” he said. Instead, he surrounded each image with a gold-leaf frame.

In his 25 years illuminating biblical texts, Moriah, a secular Israeli, had often referenced images from nations surrounding the Land of Israel, such as the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians. However, as he began studying Ecclesiastes for this artistic endeavor – a book that, until that point in his life, he had never looked at in-depth – he soon realized that the lack of a narrative voice would be one of the main challenges as he set out to illustrate this ancient text.

The elderly author, also known as Koheleth, focuses primarily on his ironic view of life, generally avoiding topics of faith. “Unlike other books of the Bible, there is almost no room in his writing for divine intervention, reward, or punishment, nor is there any mention of an afterlife,” Moriah pointed out.

Since the text lacked a narrative voice, Moriah searched for appropriate images in other cultures further afield. He turned to ancient Greek mythology for inspiration, since scholars point to the influence of the Hellenists – who invaded Israel around 300 BCE – on the Israelites.

“By the time Ecclesiastes was supposedly written, Hellenistic culture had been in dialogue with Israelite culture for about 100 years. This influence is evident in various parts of the text. For example, the sun motif – often found in classical Greek culture – is used repeatedly,” Moriah explained.

“The ancient mosaic in the center of the synagogue at Beit Alpha [6th-century CE synagogue at the base of Mount Gilboa] depicts Helios riding his chariot. If Helios – the personification of the sun in Greek mythology – is deemed appropriate for a synagogue, I felt justified in incorporating this image into my visual interpretation.”

To illustrate the verse “What value, then, can the man of affairs get from what he earns?” (Ecclesiastes 3:9), Moriah again turned to Greek mythology, depicting the legend of Sisyphus, who eternally rolled an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll back every time it neared the top.

Drawings of an owl, a symbol that depicts wisdom in Hellenistic culture, are also sprinkled throughout Moriah’s illuminated manuscript as the artist sought what he terms “the essence” of each verse.

THE PROCESS of creating this illustrated book unfolded over several stages and took 10 months to complete. As he has done several times in the past when illuminating biblical works, Moriah studied the text with Bible scholar Yair Zakovitch, professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and then produced 350 preliminary studies. Together, they selected 193 images for the book.

In the next stage, Moriah once again collaborated with master calligrapher Izzy Pludwinski – who has written the texts for many of Moriah’s illuminated biblical works. “We designed each page, integrating the text with my preliminary drawings. Izzy then wrote the text on parchment using a beautiful font he created specifically for this book,” Moriah recalled. 

For the final stage, the artist used a light table to combine the images with the text. He then framed each image in gold to enhance the book.

Observed Zakovitch: “In every biblical book that Moriah has illuminated, he has crafted a unique visual language. The pessimism of Ecclesiastes guided Avner’s choice of black as a dominant color, though careful observers will also notice a subtle humor in the illustrations.

“Black is complemented by gold, reminiscent of Solomon’s wealth, reflecting the verse: ‘Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold’ (I Kings 10:14). His use of gold evokes the feel of a medieval illuminated manuscript in Avner’s version of Ecclesiastes.

“Avner’s interpretive solutions are as insightful as those of professional commentators,” Zakovitch added. “I was particularly impressed by how he handled the recurring motifs, like ‘vanity of vanities’ and ‘there is nothing new under the sun,’ injecting each repetition with diversity and depth.”

ALTHOUGH 51 years have passed since the Yom Kippur War, Moriah remains critical of the military and political establishments for their ineptitude and lack of imagination – similar, he points out, to their tragic misinterpretation of Hamas’s capabilities and plans that led to the terrorist organization’s October 7, 2023, mega-atrocity. 

Both wars, he said, share similar elements that led to tragic outcomes: the arrogance of the country’s leaders and their failure to heed the warnings of ordinary soldiers who foresaw the impending attacks.

“In 1973, in the weeks before the Yom Kippur War broke out, I was on the Golan Heights with my unit. People laughed at me when I said that the Syrians – whom we could see were amassing their troops along the border – were preparing to attack us.

“When October 7 happened, I felt like I was reliving the Yom Kippur War all over again,” he said. “It’s the same sick system, in which the people in charge don’t think out of the box and refuse to see what’s right in front of them.”

With the backdrop of Puccini and Verdi’s operas providing the essential emotional balm for Moriah to complete his artistic vision of the Book of Ecclesiastes, the verses of chapter three guided him with a sense of perspective, as he pushed through his jumble of feelings to complete the project: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to weep and a time to laugh.” 

“I had to be inspired every day because of what was going on in Israel. It was almost impossible to concentrate,” he reflected. “But while working on my drawings, I realized that Koheleth’s message is: Though we all are destined to die, we should enjoy life while we can. In the end, I found solace in the book.”