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

Know Your Zosos from Your Ziljians

Everyone from Bob Lefsetz to your brother has lamented how bad the new music is today.  It doesn't take a rock star to come to this realization.

Ah, spin class, the trusty go-to for exposure to new music.  Spinning today to LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem," which hit #1 on charts last year throughout Europe, the UK, the US, New Zealand and Australia, got me wondering:

What the heck is up this dreck?

The lyrics:  empty, offensive and below fraternity house antics.
The electronic beat:   catchy but gets annoying.
And the chutzpah to make a Zeppelin reference.
Where, exactly, is the skilled musicianship?
Nary a drum kit to be heard.
Oh, right, that is the definition of electronica.
And, shouldn't everyone in this tune be doing the Hollywood Shuffle instead?  Now, that is quality shufflin'.
The part that bothers me is the thought of the millions of kids listening to this as their early exposure to music.
Oy.


I don't even want to watch this video.
But for pure illustration purposes, here it is.




Ok, I do like to focus on the positive.  I appreciate the club kid influence as evident in some of the outfits in the video and the dude with the big fro's huge white glasses, reminiscent of Laura Biogottis from the 80s.  I like the acting in the beginning.  And, nice fancy steps at the end of the video.   That's about it.

Still, I continue to lobby for real music like Kashmir in spin class.
Robert Plant.  Now there's a rock star.




Then I can envision myself as Jennifer Jason Leigh in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and rock it out on the spin bike like it's 1982.

(they cut out at 2:00 when Kashmir comes on the scene.)
This scene is the reason why I bought Led Zeppelin IV on tape, one of my earliest music purchases.

And we all know that Kashmir ain't to be found on that album!
Oh, Cameron Crowe, the film's screenwriter, is a genius culture maker of my generation.




Good thing the Allmans let him tag along as a teenager.

It sounds so cliche to think it was all better when you were a teenager, but I do think that when it comes to music and popular culture, I was better off without the acronym and certainly the band LMFAO.

Talkin' Hava Negiliah Blues

Who hasn't done a hora to hava nagila at bar and bat mitzvahs in the United States?  It is an unavoidable Jewish American cliche.  Over the years, we have grown to prefer other, less-trite Jewish songs, but just when we thought it was out of our lives...

... wouldn't ya know, along has come a documentary on the song.




While they didn't say it by name, hava nagila is, essentially, based on a chassidic nigun, or wordless religous melody invoking prayer and spirituality.
Spare yourself the 9 minutes.  Despite the much-appreciated academic analysis of the song,

we'll stick with Bob Dylan's rendition.

Shake Sugaree and how nice it is to be with your brothers and sisters, including Matisyahu

Not to be confused with (fellow MOT) Danny Meyer's Shake Shack (no doubt:  treif and not kosher, but you can learn how to make their Shack Burger at home), tonight, in memory of Jerry Garcia (he died 15 years ago, August 9, 1995) we were listening to the Dead's Shake Sugaree.




 I got to thinking how the Dead sang about themes such as American love, loss, and heartbreak, and how this song is connected deep deep within our roots.

Elizabeth Cotten wrote the original Shake Sugaree. This woman knew how to sing and write the blues.  She was a real southern church-goin' mama. 

Here is a nice blog about Elizabeth Cotten.
She must've been connected in some way to the generations of African American women who followed the drinking gourd and had wisdom from their mamas and just by being connected to the earth.

Speaking of being connected to the earth, The Topsy Turvy Bus,

we have heard, plans to be in the lots for the 8/17/10 Phish show at Jones Beach theater.  This will be a great time to learn what the Jewish Climate Change Campaign Tour was all about.  Or maybe what Teva Learning Center is all about (shh...this visit to enlighten Jews and the world about caring for the earth is officially off the books and not really a Teva event...I mean, where is the bus even to be found on the home page?  That's another story...)  We could always chat with the folks about Eden Village Camp.  Maybe we could give each other a hug.  Or be nice.  Or just Speak Nicely. 


Here's a little history of the bus, with an interivew with Ben Cohen from Ben & Jerry's, at the end.



Or maybe, before the show, we can hang out in front of the bus and sing a good old fashioned hinay matov, arm in arm, camp-style.



Now if we could only beat-box like Matisyahu, we'd be golden..