Dear Chery Fenley,

I'm writing to you here because I can't find any other way to contact you, so hopefully someday you'll google your own name (because we all do it) and it will bring you here.

I just bought one of your pictures tonight; I don't know if it has a name, but I'm calling it "And G-d spoke, and parted the sky from the waters." Eli, who sold it to me, took a picture for you so hopefully you'll see that soon.

I was walking through the Farmer's Market tonight, and when I walked past Eli's booth your painting literally made me do a double take; nearly gave myself whiplash. It's very beautiful, and blue happens to be my favorite color, but that's not why.

See, yesterday I decided I want to become a rabbi. The past few years have been very hard for me. Everything I had was lost or burned away; I'm at the bottom of the well, looking up, and there's literally nothing else I want to do. So the decision - the shocking realization - that I actually want to be something again has left me near to tears.

Or panic.

Or both.

My biggest fear is that I won't be able to follow through with it; that the darkness will reclaim me, and I will stay in my well alone and forgotten. I was looking for a symbol, a beacon, a light to guide my way and remind me of my goal.

And then I saw your painting.

It is now hanging in my room where I will see it every day, when I lie down and when I rise up it will be a symbol before my eyes. Reminding me. Inspiring me. And hopefully one day, soon, it will hang above my desk in my office at the temple, and the letters you blazed upon it will teach a generation of children the alef-bet.

Thank you.

With all my strength, and all my heart, and all my soul,

-AC