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David
Friedman was born in Denver, Colorado and raised in
a Modern Orthodox family.
He developed a talent for art at an early age and attended
the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode
Island for one year. David left art school to study
Torah and Jewish mysticism, which he began in Denver
with the late Rabbi B. C. S. Twerski.
Friedman immigrated to Israel in 1977 at the age of
20, spent two years studying Torah in Jerusalem, got
married and moved to Safed in 1979.
He immersed himself in the study of Talmud, and created
Torah-based art at night. After a bout with cancer in
1987, David started practicing Jewish Meditation and
focusing on the study of Kabbalah.
This combination of Kabbalah, meditation, and modern
conceptual art produced a large series of kabbalistic/meditative
paintings executed in watercolors and pen-and-ink.
Friedman has developed his own original system of translating
kabbalistic concepts into graphic shapes and colors
based primarily on Sefer Yetzirah (the Book of Creation).
He has exhibited in North America and Israel, and his
works grace many homes and art collections around the
world.
David Friedman is a popular lecturer on Kabbalah and
Jewish Meditation.
Groups of teenagers and adults, whether tourists, students
or spiritual seekers, find his presentations enjoyable
and educational as he uses his colorful art to simplify
and clarify profound kabbalistic ideas since 'a picture
is worth a thousand words'.
Although Friedman is well-versed in classical Torah
Texts (both conventional and esoteric) he is primarily
self-taught, and prefers the way of the mystic - as
independent and non-denominational as possible.
Two of his main influences in the realm of Kabbalah,
whose texts Friedman frequently teaches, are the great
18th Century kabbalist, Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto,
and the early 20th Century mystic, Rabbi Abraham Isaac
Hakohen Kook.
David continues to live, work
and teach in Safed with his wife Miriam and their children.
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