Renewal
Last night, Jay and I went to the sukkah of Michael Kagan (the author of the Holistic Haggadah) and his wife, Ruth (an Aleph ordained Israeli) for a musical jam in observance of the night before Simchat Torah, when the somehow always effective rain prayer is recited as we pound the dry willow leaves of the lulav on the ground.
We reflected on water through song and intellectual explorations, harmonized with imitation tablas and guitar ragas, and clapped out hands to blues-flavored Torah chants.
The highlight of the night was when Michael seemed to laugh, sob and pray through the ululating and silken song of his shofar. Its call rippled out beyond its sound as we began to sing Hannah Senesh's poem, "Eli, Eli".
It was so important to me to finally connect with a liberal spiritual Jewish crowd in Jerusalem. The best of the liberal rationalist crowd that's predominantly at Pardes, and the rightist spiritual crowd that I met in Nachlaot and continue to encounter in Carlebach communities around Israel, these are predecessors of the typical retreatants at Elat Chayyim: creative, free-associating mystics, but also people well-versed in traditional Jewish texts.
We reflected on water through song and intellectual explorations, harmonized with imitation tablas and guitar ragas, and clapped out hands to blues-flavored Torah chants.
The highlight of the night was when Michael seemed to laugh, sob and pray through the ululating and silken song of his shofar. Its call rippled out beyond its sound as we began to sing Hannah Senesh's poem, "Eli, Eli".
It was so important to me to finally connect with a liberal spiritual Jewish crowd in Jerusalem. The best of the liberal rationalist crowd that's predominantly at Pardes, and the rightist spiritual crowd that I met in Nachlaot and continue to encounter in Carlebach communities around Israel, these are predecessors of the typical retreatants at Elat Chayyim: creative, free-associating mystics, but also people well-versed in traditional Jewish texts.
posted by Adam Lavitt at 5:05 AM
2 Comments:
Adam,
Keep rocking the blog! I'm enjoying vicariously being at Pardes greatly, as scholarship apps for the real thing next year sit in my inbox.
Simchat Torah here was excellent - we all went into NYC to BJ. Hundreds of whirling bodies, finished off with a drum jam.
We also hosted Jews in the Woods last week - talk about your liberal spiritual types. I have a feeling you should meet all of them.
Last, have you found any good Israeli electronica?
Peace... Joe
Joe,
Simchat Torah at BJ sounds nice; Jay and I had a pretty different experience, going to the mainly orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem (Mea Sharim), entering a Caraliner Chasidic shul and singing niggunim, while dancing around Torahs in incredibly chaotic serpantine rows, passing in front of other beautiful people for an hour and a half with only the hands of those on either side of us to hold onto. Wow, I'd love to hear more about how Jews in the Woods went!
Blessings, Adam
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