In this episode, I move from defining Jewish Futurism to actually doing it. What does it look like to practice Jewish Futurism in your creative work, your teaching, your community building, or your daily life? How do Jewish texts, rituals, and patterns of thought become tools for imagining futures rather than artifacts of the past?
I explore Jewish Futurism as a lived methodology. One that shows up through design, storytelling, ritual adaptation, speculative thinking, and creative constraint. Drawing from Torah, rabbinic interpretation, art practice, and my own community-based projects, this episode looks at how Jews have always practiced futurism by rehearsing futures, holding multiple meanings at once, and designing systems meant to survive change.
This episode is an invitation. Not to agree with a definition, but to experiment. To treat Jewish tradition as a living design system. And to ask how your own creative practice might become a site where past, present, and future meet.
Back in 2014, when I first started to create my Jewish futurist art and stories, I thought that my character, the Wanderer should live a few hundred years into the future, so my spiritual technology objects could just “work” as he travels through time to different Jewish moments in history. But not everything in the Jewish cannon of stories are historical, so that became a narrative issue for my characters extraterrestrial abilities to be believable. I shifted to think about what if the character existed not in the “future” based on time, but in a liminal space built entirely out of the Jewish cannon of stories. This is the first thing to understand when thinking about Jewish futurism as a creative practice. We’ve learned to think of thresholds as thin lines, transitional moments you pass through quickly on your way from one stable state to another. But Jewish textual tradition suggests something different: the threshold itself can be a world, a zone of variable width where multiple versions of the same story coexist without resolution.
This is where Jewish futurism lives and works.
The Wilderness Prototype
The Book of Numbers, Bamidbar in Hebrew, literally means “in the wilderness.” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks identified this wilderness period as Israel’s formative liminal experience, a space “between Egypt and the Promised Land” where the people transformed from “escaping slaves” into “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. The wilderness wasn’t just a route to somewhere else. It was the place where identity formed, where law was given, where the impossible work of becoming happened.
Wandering Israelites 2024, Digital Illustration, By Mike Wirth
Jewish futurism inherits this structure. It positions itself in a wilderness between deep tradition and speculative futures, refusing to resolve that tension into either pure preservation or pure innovation. The creative power comes from staying in the threshold.
Multiformity: When Stories Refuse to Collapse
Jewish textual tradition demonstrates something unusual: it preserves multiple versions of the same story without declaring one correct and the others false. The Talmud includes the story of how Jewish children survived Pharaoh’s decree in two different midrashim, Exodus Rabba 1:12 and Exodus Rabba 23:8, telling “essentially the same story” with different details and emphases. Both remain authoritative. Both are studied. Neither cancels the other out.
This happens again with the creation narratives in Genesis, which offer two distinct accounts that the rabbis never harmonized. When Genesis 2:23 has Adam declare “this time (zot hapa’am) bone of my bone,” the rabbis read the phrase “this time” as evidence there must have been a first time, another woman before Eve. This reading generates the Lilith tradition, which itself exists in radically different versions across texts. Sometimes she’s a Mesopotamian demon, sometimes Adam’s first wife who refused subordination, sometimes multiple Liliths entirely (the Matron Lilith mated with Samael, the Lesser Lilith with Asmodeus). The tradition never consolidates these into one coherent mythology.
This is what I mean by calling liminal space a “storehouse of options.” All these versions exist together, not as rough drafts leading to a final text, but as a permanent multiplicity. The creative work happens in the space between versions, where meaning emerges from juxtaposition and contradiction rather than resolution.
Metamodernism and the Jewish futurist Oscillation
Jewish futurism operates through what contemporary theory calls metamodernism, an approach that “oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naivete and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation”. This isn’t confusion or inconsistency. It’s a deliberate method of holding contradictions in productive tension.
Marc Chagall’s I and the Village (1911)
Consider Marc Chagall’s I and the Village (1911), which projected “mystical futures” while remaining rooted in shtetl imagery, or Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower (1921), which used “dynamic, visionary architecture” to anticipate “new Jewish identities” while drawing on Jewish cultural memory. Both works refuse to choose between past and future. They exist in the oscillation itself.
Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower (1921)
My own practice with neon aesthetics, AI-integrated rituals, and speculative spiritual objects tries to inhabit this same oscillating space. The work is simultaneously reverent toward tradition and radically speculative about Jewish futures. It takes the midrashic impulse (interpreting and expanding upon existing texts) and applies it to material culture, visual art, and interactive experience. The question isn’t whether to look backward or forward, but how to create in the charged space where both directions exist at once.
The Danger of Over-Explanation
Here’s where methodology becomes crucial. The liminal space has power precisely because it resists total systematization. When you map everything, explain all the connections, resolve all the contradictions into a coherent world, you destroy the liminal quality you were trying to work with.
The internet phenomenon of The Backrooms demonstrates this perfectly. In 2019, someone posted a single unsettling image on 4chan: an empty office space with yellowed lighting that evoked uncanny familiarity and wrongness. Its power came from mystery and minimalism. You could project your own dread onto that space. It remained undefined.
But as one analysis explains, “the internet tends to reject simplicity. A mere image cannot suffice; it demands depth, a narrative, characters, and intricate worldbuilding”. Within months, The Backrooms “transformed from a strange setting into an entire alternate dimension, complete with its own physical laws and terrifying creatures. There are countless levels, each featuring unique themes, ecosystems, backstories, and factions”. A commenter captured what was lost: “Modern Fandom kills that feeling of liminality and making up your own interpretations. You’re never just ‘alone’ with a game or story giving you fractured information”.
The lesson for Jewish futurism is clear. The moment you turn the “storehouse of options” into a fully mapped shared universe (like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or an RPG sourcebook), you’ve left liminal space behind. You’re no longer working with multiformity but with a single systematized world that happens to contain variety.
Dwelling in the Threshold
Jewish futurism as creative practice means learning to dwell in the threshold rather than passing through it. It means producing work that operates like midrash, creating new versions that coexist with rather than replace existing ones. It means embracing the metamodern oscillation between tradition and speculation, between melancholy and hope, between the archive and the unknown.
Most importantly, it means resisting the urge to explain everything, to make it all cohere. The wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land was where transformation happened precisely because it was undefined space, liminal territory where old certainties no longer held but new ones hadn’t yet solidified. That’s the space where Jewish futurism works.
The magic is in the mystery. Once the mystery is gone, so is the magic.
Images included are used solely for commentary and academic analysis under fair use provisions of U.S. copyright law.
During the first year of the pandemic in 2020, a friend recommended I read My Name Is Asher Lev. We had just finished watching Shtisel, the Israeli drama about a Haredi family in Jerusalem. Akiva, the show’s painter protagonist, is gentle, passionate, and deeply conflicted between his community’s expectations and his need to create (Lyons; Mazria Katz; “The Art and Politics of Desire”). His journey is like Asher Lev’s and raises a still-vital question, what makes art Jewish?
Promotional still from Shtisel. Copyright Yes TV. Used for academic commentary.
Our connection of Asher Lev to Shtisel illuminated an ongoing continuum of reinvention in Jewish storytelling and ritual. Originally a novel, Asher Lev’s journey was adapted for the stage by playwright Aaron Posner, premiering at the Arden Theatre Company in 2012 and later finding success Off-Broadway, where it won several awards including the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play (“My Name Is Asher Lev – Dramatists”; Broadway.com; Fountain Theatre). The adaptation brings Potok’s exploration of art, faith, and family into the lived immediacy of theater, allowing new audiences to encounter and interpret these questions on their own terms. In this way, Asher Lev’s/Akiva’s conflict with tradition, creativity, and communal belonging, continues to inspire and reshape Jewish art in every new medium.
Cover of My Name Is Asher Lev. Copyright Anchor Books, 2003. Used here under fair use for purposes of scholarly analysis.
Reading Asher Lev reframed the question for me. Both Akiva and Asher are artists negotiating communal obligation and personal inspiration, risking nearly everything to remain true to their gifts. Their stories trace a path toward sacred creativity, providing a foundation for what can be called Jewish futurism.
When Chaim Potok published My Name Is Asher Lev, he gave Jewish artists an enduring guide. Potok’s Hasidic protagonist struggles to reconcile tradition and creative drive. As Potok writes, “…an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist” (My Name Is Asher Lev). This tension between individuality and belonging is a persistent theme in Jewish artistic life. Jewish futurism affirms that Jewish art isn’t fixed in the past; rather, it unfolds with every creative act, no matter the medium.
Potok’s novel contends that creative instinct itself is sacred. Asher paints not out of pride, but from necessity, a need that is intertwined with spiritual purpose. Potok argues, “A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven” (Potok, Goodreads). For Asher, creative intuition becomes a form of ruach elohim, the divine breath of creation.
The narrative of Asher Lev is rooted in the idea of Tzelem Elohim, the belief that each person is made in the image of God. When Asher paints The Brooklyn Crucifixion, he is not betraying his Judaism. Instead, he translates personal anguish into communal compassion (SparkNotes; LitCharts). This ability to turn emotion into understanding reflects a hallmark of Jewish artistic practice. Maurycy Gottlieb, the nineteenth-century Jewish painter, struggled in similar ways. His art often explored the tensions between personal identity, Jewish tradition, and the surrounding culture (YIVO Encyclopedia; Culture.pl; Jewish Virtual Library; Brandeis).
Maurycy Gottlieb – Ahasuerus wandering (Self portrait) – 1876, Oil on Canvas. Image is in the Public Domain. Used here under fair use for purposes of scholarly analysis.
Like Asher Lev, Gottlieb faced societal expectations and pressures from family, peers, and the broader Jewish community. He frequently channeled his own pain and longing into works that resonate with empathy and universal dignity (YIVO Encyclopedia; Jewish Virtual Library; Brandeis; Segula Magazine). Their creative journeys illustrate how Jewish artists inspired by the concept of Tzelem Elohim bring individual and collective experience into dialogue, turning private struggles into forms of connection and healing.
Akiva’s journey in Shtisel parallels Asher’s in many ways. He transforms his family and grief into paintings, using creativity as a form of tikkun, or repair (Lyons; Mazria Katz; “The Art and Politics of Desire”). Despite resistance from his world, Akiva, like Asher, brings faith and creativity together, refusing to separate the two.
Jewish modernism’s dialogue with tradition is exemplified by Marc Chagall, whose paintings fill modern art with Jewish memory and mysticism. As Chagall observed, “If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing” (Chagall qtd. in “Analysis of Marc Chagall”; Grad). Chagall’s career models how Jewish creativity can look forward while remaining emotionally and spiritually grounded.
Self portrait with palette 1917, Marc Chagall, Liozna, near Vitebsk, Belarus, Image from source. Used here under fair use for purposes of scholarly analysis.
This same process of transformation is reflected in Potok’s exploration of art’s creative and destabilizing power. “Art is a danger to some people… Picasso used to say, art is subversive,” Potok reminds us (Bookey). In both modern and traditional contexts, Jewish artists risk pushing boundaries in order to offer new interpretations of spiritual experience.
Jewish spiritual practice teaches that every action gains significance through intention, or kavanah. Potok mirrors this sentiment: “Creativity, self-expression, and truth…emerge from honesty about oneself” (LitCharts). Jewish futurists apply this mindset to every new creative medium, continually asking if their work reveals more goodness and light.
Today, artists like Deborah Kass and Archie Rand carry these values forward as Jewish artists fully integrated into the mainstream art world. Kass’s OY/YO at the Brooklyn Museum and Rand’s The 613both embody the creative tension between reverence and innovation (Brooklyn Museum; Rand).
Silent Remembrance (self-portrait), 2024, Mike Wirth, Digital Illustration. Image property of artist.
My own contemporary Jewish work was inspired by these characters. In my digital illustration piece, Silent Remembrance, I restaged a self portrait by Felix Nussbaum, a Jewish-German painter who perished in the Shoah (Holocaust).
All of our artwork is apart of a has a legacy and reaffirms the idea that beauty and sacredness can and should coexist.
The journeys of Asher Lev (page and stage), Akiva from Shtisel, Maurycy Gottlieb, Marc Chagall, and many Jewish contemporary creatives illuminate a vibrant continuum of Jewish artists who, across generations and media, confront the tension between personal inspiration and communal tradition (Morinis; Segula Magazine; YIVO Encyclopedia; SparkNotes; LitCharts; Wullschlager). Each pursues the middah of emet (truth), striving for honesty and authenticity in their creative practice, even when this honesty leads to conflict or alienation within their communities. Asher paints his deepest truths, Akiva wrestles to honor his art within the constraints of Jerusalem’s Haredi world, Gottlieb channels his longing for acceptance and identity into portraits and biblical scenes, and Chagall infuses his canvases with heartfelt reverence, mystical memory, and universal feeling (Grad; Art Prodigy Blog).
Along the way, each artist embodies anavah (humility), recognizing their role as a vessel for creativity, and rachamim (compassion), using their gifts to turn personal struggle and sorrow into works of empathy and communal connection. Their creative processes mirror the stages of Mussar: deep self-examination, engagement with inner and outer conflict, risking rejection or misunderstanding, and ultimately returning to offer artistic repair, tikkun, to their communities and to Jewish tradition itself (Morinis; Mussar Institute; Ritualwell; My Jewish Learning).
Through these acts of creative repair and ethical growth, their art becomes a conduit for goodness and revelation. Their stories remind us that Jewish artistic futurism is not static but unfolds wherever artists grapple honestly, humbly, and compassionately with the tensions of their lives. Revelation and healing do not end in moments of exile or struggle; rather, they continue through every artist who brings fresh insight and loving repair to their people.
If you’ve not read My Name is Asher Lev, watched Shtisel, or viewed Gottlieb’s work, I highly recommend all three. I’m excited to see the stage production, myself. I hope you find kindred souls in these stories, like I have.
Goal: Create an immersive space that reacts to participants’ audio and motion input.
Awards: 2023 Blumenthal Arts Fellowship Grant Winner
“Rimon: The Cosmogranate” is an immersive art piece, inspired by the Hebrew word ‘rimon,’ meaning pomegranate. Its form mirrors the fruit, emitting a radiant significance. At its core, it merges art with interaction. Inner sensors respond to audience movement and sound input, translating presence and voice into a dynamic interplay of lights and sounds.
This kinetic symphony crafts a unique and captivating experience that boasts shining over 14k LED lights. The project honors a tradition of Jewish ingenuity, echoing the pomegranate’s role in the Torah and the cherished Sukkah during Sukkot. Rooted in Mike Wirth’s Jewish futurism body of work, the project blends ancient wisdom with futuristic visions.
Mike’s original illustration that inspired the installation. (2021)
This resonant symbol, shared across cultures and religions, serves as a unifying emblem. Here, technology, spirituality, and community converge, each light and sound carrying a timeless narrative. Step into this radiant realm, where history’s echoes meld with the pulse of innovation, weaving a tapestry of unity and celebration across generations.
