Journeys of Wandering Tribes

As is well known, the name given to a weekly Torah portion reveals its major theme and this week’s parsha, Masey, is quite a trip. 

Masey are journeys – and this week the Torah details the journeys of the Children of Israel "bnei yisrael" during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the exodus from Egypt.

 

אלה מסעי בני ישראל אשר יצאו מארץ מצרים לצבאותם ביד משה ואהרון

I would like to show some parallels between our own people’s journey  - a people that pursues truth and light, a marginalized people that perseveres and succeeds despite small numbers - and other journeys of modern-day wandering tribes who also seek truth and light.   

There is no research and few data to support my claims, but these tribes feature a very high ratio of Jews.  This group of people embodies an energy that should be harnessed to bring positive change to the world just as The Children of Israel has done since its formation.  These are the people who are the dedicated and devoted live-music fans of a slew of exploratory bands known as “jambands.”   Having just seen my favorite jamband play 2 nights in a row right here, live in Philadelphia, my thoughts on the convergence of Torah and jamband music are still fresh.

The beginning of the Torah portion "parsha" lists a litany of locations – venues, as it were. These are the stops on the tour out of exile.  As the verses, "psukim," say:

“vayisu……..vayachanu….. vayisu, vayachanu…….”

The portion repeats this cadence of "vayisu," they left, and "vayachanu," they camped, for each of the numerous locations. Some sound familiar, some less so, places like Rimmon Peretz, Terach, Chashmonah, The Western Plains of Moav.  This is how we wandered through the desert for 40 years – from one place to another, always temporary, always seeking out the next place until we were ready to enter our promised land.

Similarly, fans of Phish and other jambands, and back in the day, the Grateful Dead, follow their favorite musicians to numerous locations.  Some sound familiar, like Madison Square Garden and The Mann Music Center,  and  some less so, like Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Deer Creek, The Mothership, The Gorge, and more.  While there are many fans, like myself, who are married with children and live relatively rooted lives, others follow their favorite bands perhaps for a week or a whole tour.  Some in the scene look like they have been wandering for even more than forty years!

The crews pick up and leave to reach the next venue, and camp out for at least a while in the parking lot and tailgate.  They are always looking for the next location, the next venue, the next show, following the good vibes. 

Before I get to my point, I acknowledge some disconnects.  These disconnects include that between Jews on tour and Jews not on tour / "on the bus" (which I imagine is most of the Jewish community).  There is a disconnect between Jews on tour who are connected to traditional Judaism (aka "yiddishkeit" which includes me, a few friends, my husband) and Jews on tour not as connected to our traditions (which includes many friends and would-be friends, wonderful people who live for the live music yet rarely if ever light Shabbat candles, prefer things like pagan gatherings, have xmas trees, marry non Jews, or otherwise shirk anything that seems too “Jewish”).  Of course, this overly simplifies things are there are many shades of gray in between.    

Shortly after the Torah portion details the list of locations, it takes us to a higher level

והורשתם את הארץ וישבתם בה כי לכם נתתי את הארץ לרשת אתה

Clear out the land and live in it, since it is to you that I am giving the land to occupy.

Then we learn that the land is distributed to the families by a lottery system,

והתנחלתם את הארץ בגורל

Similarly, to score the insider’s jamband tickets, one enters a lottery months before tickets are made available to the public through traditional outlets.  In this way, tickets are distributed to the various different inner networks of friends and families, often overlapping circles, that are so dedicated to their bands.

I’m not the first one to try to connect these seeming disconnects.  From 1968-1972 Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach ran the House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco with this in mind.  Many since and many still are on tour with their service to Gd "avodat hashem."  My own experiences at shows are enriched and enhanced by my traditional Jewish vantage point.  At the same time, there have been countless fellow Jews I have chatted with at shows who claim they aren’t religious and say things like, “being at a show is my church,”  and yet this is their most intensely spiritual experience.

Like myself, people go to shows to leave life behind for a while and have a taste of what it feels like to be 17 or 21 or otherwise carefree again.  Yet they are striving to see through the light (lines).  Indeed, there is a lot of fog that surrounds.

The way I see it, light is most illuminated through Shabbat, beginning with Shabbat candles and ending with Havdallah.  Personally I can't see how Shabbat candles can glow brightly at the stage of a live music show, but to each her own.  Lighting candles far away from a festival stage, however, in one's tent, cabin, hotel room etc, has its own merit.  I must add that no mention of Shabbat candles in our generation is complete without gratitude towards the work of the Lubavitcher Rebbe who initiated a widely succesful campaign to encourage Jewish women and children to light Shabbat candles.

I acknowledge the challenge presented in bringing in the light from both worlds - the Jewish and the jamband.  A most memorable Havdallah at a jamband festival did exactly this a few years ago.  Amidst the beautiful music, a small group of us who connect to both these worlds brought down the light of Havdallah.  And yet all the while my friend's crew who was elsewhere on the festival grounds was texting her to return to them, perhaps not realizing the goodness that was happening in our family tent area.  The push and pull tension of both worlds are real, and yet we can harness the best of each.

But where is the journey taking us?

אלה מסעי בני ישראל אשר יצאו מארץ מצרים לצבאותם

לצבאותם

We left exile in organized groups, in tribes, as crews, and we need to connect the dots, bring together our collective energies and fulfill our mission, arrive at our destination.  When we do this we will all make it to the ultimate show and will merit the ultimate encore.

Then we will be picked up and leave:  Vayisu

And we will be taken on the wings of eagles:  V'Yachanu

And all of us wandering tribes will camp out together in our land forever.

Theodore Herzl famously said, "If you will it, it is no dream."  Especially in these heady times of unrest in Israel, we need to hold onto this modern-day expression of our Gd-given promised land.  And of a time when all will be good.

The light will be bright.
The music will ulnite.
We will all be kind.
We will be redeemed. 

The jam will be epic.

GOOD SHABBAS!
SHABBAT SHALOM!

me at a Jones Beach Phish show , June 2009

Baruch Dayan Emet: Larry Bloch

The man who created the club the Wetlands in lower Manhattan, Larry Bloch, passed away on Sunday of pancreatic cancer, the Bratteboro Reformer reports.  The Wetlands was a place that allowed me to get my own feet wet in the jam band scene.  Admittedly, I didn't go nearly as much as I should have, but I knew that it was the place to be and wished I went more.  Still somewhat in-the-box and not having a group of friends to venture with to Tribeca from the Upper West Side, I saw just a handful of shows in my early 20s at The Wetlands.  But these shows provided a foundation from which I was able to build and grow strongly in the appreciation of live music.

Larry Bloch was a trailblazer and built an institution in a neighborhood that, at the time, was so undesirable that who knew Tribeca would become what it is today.  He created a space that allowed people to learn more about two great things in life:  environmental activism and good ole' fashioned rock-n-roll.

May Larry Bloch's, son of Ephraim and Miriam, memory be for a blessing.

I loved flipping to the ad section of The Village Voice and looking at the bands where were playing that week.   Usually it was the Zen Tricksters.  Often it was bands I had never heard of and never went to hear.

Thank you for being an enabler.
Larry enabled folks to hear great music.
Larry enabled folks to care about the earth.

These are two very good things, and for those who are in the know, you know what I mean.

Spin Class Song Request

One reason I go to spin class is to get motivated by a great instructor with great music and who pushes me in a way I can't do on my own.  Usually the music is new stuff that I would otherwise never hear.  Even if most of it is dreck (unworthy garbage) I appreciate the sentiment, because it keeps me current with popular culture.  But for whatever reason, there is a thought that new music is the only music that people want to hear in spin class and can't grind it out to anything else.

Not me!

Spin instructors of the world:  bring on the classic rock.  Where are Pink Floyd, Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin among the your playlists?   I'm not talking Stairway to Heaven, which is slow and drawn out, but tunes like Money, Rag Doll, and Kashmir could get my cadence to 130 just as well as any Jay-Z or Rihanna tune  (not those artists produce garbage-like music; I actually like their stuff.  It's the other dreck that I am talking about).

One instructor told me that jam band tunes are too long, and preferred spin songs are no more than 4 minutes.  Check out this very rocking instrumental Frankenstein, originally by the Edgar Winter Group, and covered by my favorite band.





But if you think it is too jammy, just cut it short.  No one would mind.

Three is, quite indeed, a Magic Number, but 18 is the highest and means Life

We didn't really love to watch TV when we were growing up in the 70s and 80s (strange, right?), but we became acquainted with Schoolhouse Rock's "Three is a Magic Number" at a Gathering of the Vibes outdoor music festival some time in the late 90s or early 2000's.  Its writer, composer, and original performer, Bob Dorough, was there in Bridgeport, Connecticut on a side stage performing some of Gen X's most iconic memories from Saturday morning cartoons.  While the main stage mainly occupied jam bands such as the Radiators (we linked you to their Zeke's copyrwritten "Fish Head Manifesto," a deep piece of prose in its own right), Rat Dog, Deep Banana Blackout and moe, we were drawn to the side stage. We remember getting really down with this song in particular.  And we mean reallllllllllllllllly digging it, grooving to it, and thinking of its meaning other than simple math.

Wait, isn't that what Schoolhouse Rock intended to do?
Get its listeners to rock out?

First, a posthumous thank you to its brilliant creator, ad exec and Yalie David McCall.  and industry exec Michael Eisner (whose Wikipedia entry attributes much of his success to canoe camp in Vermont as a boy...good stuff!), for bringing it to the American people.  Wow, that is pretty early in Eisner's career. 




A little bit of background with regard to the number 3 in Judaism:

1.  The 3rd day of creation (Tuesday, duh) the only day during the creation of the world when the infamous line "and it was good" is mentioned twice.  There is a custom among certain Jews to get married on this day because it offers good luck.

2.  There were 3 patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob)

3.  (Question:  are you thinking, well, there is also the  Holy Trinity in Christianity, so it's not just Jews who hold this number is high regard?  Indeed, you are correct!  Dorough himself said it is an "ancient magic trinity." There is something there, we agree, but this is a site leaning more Jewish but we'll give you that.  There is something there.  Indeed, when a person can be named after their father and grandfather and given the suffix "III" and then from there get the nickname "Trey" that, too, is significant.)  Ok, so there's your answer for number 3.  Meaningful and unifying all the same.

4.  Three is strength, in Hebrew "chazakah."  When something occurs once in the world, this is normal, this is usual.  Two times, now we're talking.  Three times?  Now that is a miracle.  And that miracle is strength.  Check out Askmoses for more on that.  The holiest of holies the Lubavitcher Stango, a concealed great of our time, said as much the eve of his wedding just moments before the start of Chanuka in the year of segula b'yisrael.   For further reference, check the video Makin' it Halachic which is currently unavailable online.  Hoping to upload it one of this many moons (if you read thus far, you should know that we aren't too terribly off on a tangent, but it's not like this is available to put out there for the masses.  Yet).

Ok, we lost you there, let's get back to earth.

A quick check on the covers of this song include a sample by De La Soul, a cover by Blind Melon, and a modern version by Jack Johnson with regard to the environment.

Here is Blind Melon's cover, a nice sound.






Jack Johnson went to Hawaii to discover the meaning of aloha.  (We are big believers in being here, now.  Not sure if Johnson is acquainted with the Ram Dass, nee Richard Alpert.).



He gets to the number 18 (3 times 3 times 3) the 18th letter of the alphabet is R.  He takes Bob Dorough's iconic song and uses it to talk about the environment.

We are only guessing that Mr. Johnson, who is singing the environmental message about reduce, reuse and recycle (very different 3 R's that existed in the mid-century rubric of reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic) didn't realize at the time that 18 is the numeric equivalent in Judaism to life.  and one very important to Judaism and Torah values (indeed, we are approaching Jewish Arbor Day called Tu B'Shvat, the birthday of the trees) ).

Or maybe he did.

If so, he wasn't overt.

In any event, thank you to the Annenberg Foundation for funding this very wise re-writing of this iconic song for us Gen X'ers. 

Back to the number 18.  Or was it the 3 Rs?

L'Chayim!  L'Chaim?
We actually never fully watched Fiddler from beginning to end, but you do remember this scene, we hope:




L'Chayim, that famous word to so many even bagels and lox Jews, is equal in gematria, or Jewish numerology, 18.  To life, as it were, is a combination of the Hebrew letters "chet" and "yud."  You know, "Chai"?  How many Jews have you known to wear a gold chai around their neck (ugh, a bit gauche for us, but maybe that's just a hangup of ours).  A nice, big hairy chest with a nice thick gold chai nestled somewhere in there.  Reminds us of Grandpa Al, whom we loved so much, especially when he was all leathery tan after a winter in West Palm.  Remember the trips to Boca and Delray, and how can we pass up Worth Avenue.  End the day with an early bird special (dinner at 4pm, we are so glad we had grandparents in Florida) and pick up some groceries at Publix, and we're golden.

So essentially, we have been thinking a lot lately about how 3 is a magic number.  It is currently a Tuesday as we write this, and we woke up in the middle of the night thinking about this tune.  We didn't know that Jack Johnson made it into an environmental message.  Our friends' connection to the Jewish concept of Teva, or nature, would appreciate that.  (yes, there is also the Teva sandal company and Israeli-based Teva pharmaceutical company, both worthy ventures in their own rights...we aren't sure if the sandal company's founder, Mark Thatcher, is Jewish, but he spent time in Israel from which he borrowed the Hebrew word for nature).

And it's getting very close, about 2 weeks to go, to the Jewish Arbor Day, aka

Tu B'Shvat

In summing up, the moral seems a little bit obscure (it often comes back to Phish, doesn't it?  Check out this video of their song Cavern where they perform the "in summing up" phrase towards the end of the song):



The moral:


Go hug a tree!

Julia Butterfly Hill , though not Jewish, surely did this in the 90s.

Our tradition has been loving trees for centuries.  Click on the Eitz Chayim/Tree of Life link here for a beautiful expression of this idea by Oy Baby.