The other day I sat with a friend and we listened to an album of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane-purely incredible music- such expressions of soul and self… and in listening to this recording from 1964, we both remarked on the transportive property of the music. Music is truly a fruit of the imagination, both in how it's prepared, and in how it's consumed. Its ability to awaken within us deep reservoirs of memories, passions and yearnings is strikingly powerful. And in this globally connected world, the music we hear and the places it can take us has no limits… I remember sitting on a bus listening to Cuban music a few months ago, and I found myself instantly brought to my own virtual Cuba, created through the stories, pictures, friends and images that have provided an incredible, though imaginary, acquaintance with that place in my mind. Rebbe Nachman in Torah 64 teaches that the music of a culture holds in it the roots of its cosmology, a really deep presentation of the essence of a place.
And now we come upon, in this month, the longest music fast of the Jewish people. Starting from the end of Pesach (most commonly) we have become accustomed to not listening to music until Shavuot (even though what is really strictly prohibited is the type of music experience had while dancing at a wedding, I feel the custom of our people has in it a deep teaching).
The night of Pesach shines to each one of us a tremendous light. Of freedom, of ideal self, of where and who we want to be…It is a night of prayer like no other, of retelling and reawakening the Jewish spirit of redemption, to leap out from the places where we've become accustomed to restricting ourselves to. Our slave masters are our habits, our despondencies, our depression, our voices of apathy that hold us back from being who we see we can be. Just as matza is made up of only the purely essential elements of bread, our freedom too is found when we are living off of our essential elements. We tell and live the story that is closest to our hearts and will. On the night of leaving Egypt, Hashem came down to each house and checked the doorposts. At the seder Hashem is coming to each of our seders to dance with our deepest praying parts… The ridding ourselves of our chametz leaves us able to speak from a new place of realness and depth.
And the day after starts the nurturing of this newly opened storyline. In the sefirat ha'omer we learn that the first week is that of chesed- the giving and celebrating of this new light. This week ends with the height of celebration, the seventh day, where we once crossed the sea in song. To cross the sea is to get to a new level of our personal freedom, to be singing a new song from our released soul. Then as Pesach ends, we enter into the next phase, the week of Gevura… the protective celebration cocoon of Pesach is over, and it is now time to start defining our freedom in everyday life. The gevura needed to not go back to our slave self is tremendous. There is a very real struggle in leaving the habits that once surrounded us. Even though we have felt that tremendous light- the world at large is maybe not also looking to change- and it is our struggle to live strong and pure from our essence. One of the biggest challenges to change is surely the voices that say it's all the same as it used to be. A voice that our minds hear the clearest is the music of what used to be… Our song, the fruit of our redemption, that carried us across the sea- needs it's time to develop and affect our daily habits, to paint new colors in our imagination, open up the channels of emuna that we will need for this coming year.
So when the desires arise to hear the music of yesteryear, the answer is not to sit in silence- but to compose, to improvise, to work out the next movement in your concerto.
The halacha teaches that for a person whose livelihood comes from music, it is permitted to practice in this time…A free spirit is surely dependent for their livelihood upon the melody of their faith…
Shaul David Judelman
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Shaul David Judelman currently resides in Jerusalem. After growing up amongst the Douglas Firs of Seattle, Washington, he came to Israel on a quest for Judaism alive in its land. He spent six years in the Bat Ayin Yeshiva Rabbinical program and now teaches at Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo while working on several different environmental initiatives in Jerusalem. He is the founder and coordinator of Simchat Shlomo’s Eco-Activist Beit Midrash, a program offering holistic in-depth Torah study around issues of ecology. |