Inner Lights Throughout a Year: Art & Life

Artistic re-examination of an annual Jewish Holidays

New Art Collection

Part I of 3

With a new Jewish year started recently, and the new Torah annual circle taking off, it is an appropriate time for presenting the new art collection re-examining an annual Jewish holidays circle, which I’ve created recently. 

Artistically, the works in this new Inner Lights: Jewish Year art collection ( 2026) has been resolved in the way of abstraction, with highlights into a philosophical essence of each of our holidays. 

Technique-wise, the works have been created in my special technique of original drawings and enhancements applied on the authored original prints on cotton paper. 

The new collection is a logical continuation of many previous series in which I have artistically interpreted Jewish heritage and tradition and contemporary view on Jewish symbolism. Starting from the Power of Light series featuring Judaic symbolism in its various editions, it continues in the 36 Steps,  several collections on Hanukkah, Bereishit, various collections on Jewish mysticism, and coming to the recent Yiddish Songs.  

The new Inner Lights series featured the whole annual circle of the Jewish holidays and its symbolism in a new approach.   

Light as a Key

Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, Jewish understanding of life are all based on the fundamental thesis stating that light, also metaphorically, is the basic value of existence, attitude to life and the way of living. That concept prompts us also to search for light, sometimes actively, at the times when darkness prevails, or threatens to expand beyond its limits. We are certainly living in the darkened atmosphere, and perhaps this relatively new reality has prompted the vision and impulse for this collection. 

I do believe that people who based their behavior and way of conducting their lives on this motto, in which light is both a primary value and also the ultimate surviving tool, would be able to withstand various challenges far better. That’s why light as a proponent has such an important place in almost everything I do artistically. 

Metaphor as a Prism

The collection is based on the works created  in between 2019 and 2024 and remastered in 2026. 

In a difference from my many previous collections on contemporary artistic visualization of Jewish spiritual heritage and tradition, the Inner Light collection is emphatically abstract in its visual imaginary and metaphorical in its message. 

The presentation is divided into three parts, with five works and the author’s highlights in each . 

Art as a Consolation

The originals of some of the works from this new collection belong to several notable public and private collections, including the Permanent Art Collection of the Municipality of Jerusalem, the Permanent Art Collection of the Parliament of Austria, Permanent Art Collection, Jewish Communities of Austria, private collections in Austria, Finland and Israel. Some of the owners have kindly provided their thoughts regarding the works belonging to them, for the presentation of the new collection.  

Among the five works presented in the first part, originals of two of them belong to Rabbi Leo Dee and have a dramatic story behind them. 

In the word of Rabbi Leo: “Inna Rogatchi had gifted me and the family the three works from her Creation/ Bereishit series immediately after the calamity fell upon our family, as the result of vicious terrorise attack on Pesach 2023 that claimed lives of my beloved wife Lucy and our daughters Rina and Maia. 

Inna reached out to me from Finland during our shiva, and she also authored a loving art tribute to Lucy, Rins and Maia. Soon after, I was very happy to receive these three beautiful artworks , two of which Inna has included in her new Inner Lights: Jewish Year collection. 

Since then, the works are on the wall of our bedroom. They are amazing, wonderful. Very beautiful and thoughtful, and all this time, they are bringing me a non-stopping joy. 

I am truly glad that two of these three works which are in our home, have been included in this new collection of Inna’s works artistically addressing the milestones of an annual Jewish year, with our hopes, prayers, reflections , our pleas and thoughts, and yes, as many light as possible, to guide us on“,  – writes Rabbi Leo Dee. 

Presentation of the Inner Lights Collection with the author’s highlights ( Part 1 of 3): 

Hope is an essential element in our expectations prior to Rosh HaShanah. Every year, a month prior to the next New Jewish Year, from the beginning of Elul onward , intensifying anticipation arises progressively for many  Jewish people, observing ones and not necessarily so. This is both a conscious and sub-conscious process, in its individual settings. A circle which is a central element in Jewish symbolism, refers in our view of the world to several phenomena, such as harmony, perfection ( in hope, too), completeness and non-interruption at the same time, steadiness and the message of the ongoing processes of life, study, creativity.  The Circle of Hope artwork also presents several opposite conditions and elements: light and its opposite ( though not in its extreme), solidity and diffusion, brightness and dimness, soil and water. Water is not placed  in the centre of the artwork by chance. In Judaism, it is the symbol of vitality and life. And it is placed in the very centre of the five circles around it in order to emphasize its role , especially as a new year in Jewish annual life circle is about to start. 

This work is also about expectations and hope, with light and its dominion playing the leading role in the thread and life of our aspirations which intensify as we are getting closer to the time of Rosh HaShanah every year. The work also illustrates the reality which is usually not one-dimensional in the way of content and emotions in our lives. These domains are changing constantly, and very often, unexpectedly so. But the point is that the light’s presence, even if it is not ultimately bright, provides the possibilities for us to strive, to overcome, to move forward. And there is no better time for contemplating on that, perhaps, than on its annual beginning, Rosh HaShanah. The original of this work belongs to the family collection of Rabbi Leo Dee, a good friend, thorough and deep Rabbi. The work is dedicated to the memory of his first wife Lucy who along with two of their daughters, had been viciously murdered by the terrorists on the Pesach in 2023. 

Yom Kippur, not by chance, has its unique status in Jewish heart. It is the only holiday in our annual circle which is respected the most widely across the spectrum of the Jewish strata, from devotedly observing people to those who are not caring much about it in their daily life. Except this one day. Nothing is left to chance in the inner structure of spiritual Jewish existence, and from this perspective, the climax of our expectations is reached by Yom Kippur during the previous seven days from the beginning of Jewish New Year. Yom Kippur is also possibly the most intense among our holidays from the point of view of  an inner soul’s strive. These 25 hours are filled with special , highly meaningful moments, and Kol Nidrei prayer is one of the most charged ones. This work shows this strive, even if by hinting on it. At the time of Kol Nidrei, our pleas, our promises, and our supplications get up to that ultimate address, and at this moment, perhaps once in a year for some of us, we all mean it. 

The original of the work belongs to the Permanent Art Collection of the Jewish Communities of Austria in Vienna, as a part of our donation to the community in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the Vienna’s unique and beautiful Stadttempel, the only one from 94 synagogues in the Austrian capital which survived the Second World War. The synagogue was lovingly restored for its 200th anniversary which was cordially celebrated in Vienna on Rosh HaShanah this year, 2026.

Another uniquely particular moment for Jewish people, both during a Yom Kippur day and night and throughout a year is Neila. Rounding out our almost 25 hours of addressing the High, and thinking about what we have done wrongly during just past previous year, this moment is not for a final consolation. It is a sort of clear cut, spiritually, that opens the door for the ten more days, from the end of Yom Kippur through the Sukkoth, when our destinies are finally sealed for the year to come, at the end of the High Holidays. So, Neila is the path for each of us to that decisive period in the beginning of each new year of our lives. Still, the end of this prayer, the end of Yom Kippur, is also the moment of high emotions and inner expectations and hopes. There is hardly a more suitable moment to think about the conditions of the souls, as one’s own, as one’s beloved ones. This is the motif for the House of Souls work, referring to the certain concept of the House of Souls in Judaism. It has been created in memory of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, and also belongs to our dear friend and the man with a thinking heart and heartful mind, Rabbi Leo Dee. 

Sukkot time comes as a counter-balance to the emotionally charged preceding two-weeks period of  inner personal revision for many people. The time when many of us have no alternative but to be straightforward regarding oneself during the Rosh-HaShahan and Yom Kippur dialogue with the High Power prompted by this self-examination. It is a special and demanding time, and two weeks is not a day to go through honest self-analysis. In this context, the feast of Sukkoth is the relief, the relaxation, the hospitality filled with joy and expectation of many, or some, improvements in our lives. To me, the pomegranate trees in Israel in all their abundance, is one of the most magnetic features of the land. It is full of vigor, it is always there, it is beautiful and more special than any other tree and fruit except the olive ones, to me. There is something special about pomegranate, as it is known from the Judaic tradition,  that makes a fruit the message. That’s why we are enjoying it at the Rosh HaShanah table, but also during the entire High Holidays. And during the feast of Sukkoth, our special pomegranates are dancing in unison with the hearts of so many. 

October 2026