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Monday, April 30, 2012

Interview: Torah.org teacher and prominent Los Angeles Rabbi... Yitzchok Adlerstein on Jewish Education

An informative and unusually more complete conversation with the noted Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of Torah.org,
and also Simon Weisenthal Center, talks about
internet delivered Jewish Education
by Peter Menkin



Interfaith leader and teacher, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of Los Angeles and New York


This energetic man is a teacher and interfaith leader who as part of Torah.org agreed to be interviewed about the computer organization for Religious Education, and his own work as a teacher with that Orthodox Jewish group that serves 78,000 people worldwide.
This is the third interview in three that constitute the final article-interview on Religious Education. The unique aspect of this interview has to do with the success of internet education and its use in the teaching of Torah and Jewish learning , as well, of Orthodox Jewish adult education. In this interview with Religion Writer Peter Menkin, The Rabbi who also works for Simon Weisenthal Center, spoke over a period of a few months, from December, 2011, through the April 24, 2012. The phone conversations held from Peter Menkin’s home office in Mill Valley, California with Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein were held with him while he traveled in his car, speaking from a cell phone. This warm and learned Rabbi with special and recognized experience in the areas of interfaith matters, was spontaneous and sometimes amusing with his kind sense of humor and effective methods of relating to others–others of another faith, too. He asked at one time, Why do Christians want to know about this kind of Orthodox Jewish education? or words similar. Having raised the good question that asks of the Religion Writer, State your business, the reply went something specific that this was part of a way to get a sense of Religious Education in general, and also to find relationship with the Jewish community through understanding and communication. There is no doubt, too, that many people, regardless of religious persuasion and outlook will find this an interview of interest–especially those of the Jewish faith.
Biography of the Rabbi as it appears on www.torah.org:
Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is the Director of Interfaith Affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He also serves as a faculty member at Yeshiva of Los Angeles and its high schools, and holds the Sydney M. Irmas Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at Loyola Law School.

  1. 1. As a teacher for Torah.org you not only talk to students via internet, so I think. Please let me know if that is so, and how you talk to them. On the website I note you, Rabbi, do a lot of writing and three topics caught my eye. The three are: “The Baxos of inner Purity; The Trembling of the Angels, and the third… Vayeilech (?) Torah. Please tell us a little of how you come to these topics, what level students must achieve to follow your writing for there are many Hebrew words and elegant Biblical references.
I do interact with students, but probably less than other teachers. There are people around who do live interactive teaching with students There are some questions that require answers that are too long to make, and I often reply with short text. Sometimes phone has to be the way to go. The offerings of Torah.org are segregated by beginner, intermediate, and advanced. [Regarding understanding]…there is jargon and it demands background. It does require some formal education to pick up vocabulary and general information. I write in a way that assumes people are familiar with basic texts. If I changed the style, I would lose those people who are better experienced.
[By the way]…we do blend our teaching to teaching levels.
All three [lessons] come from a two year cycle that I did in adapting the works of a 20th century master who is extremely popular under Orthodox life, the Hasidic Slonimer Rebbe. The work is called, Nesivos Shalom. What I did each week of the yearly cycle of classes, the first of his pieces that was keyed to the weekly Torah readings. The second cycle took his material on the holidays and special occasions. I found one that through my own reading would be most interesting and useful to an American audience. The fact that I found a couple of interesting lessons validates my hunch that his name was that which American students will find interesting. On any Parsha he has three or four offerings. I took any one of them and turned it into that week’s lessons. The second year I didn’t follow the Torah readings, but went to one that dealt with the holidays: Rosh Hashanah; Yom Kippur; Passover; Purim; Chanukah; Shabbat—Succot; Shavuot.. [These are]…basic topics.
Questions from students can be found on my blog. Students will share lessons and that is generally true of students. No matter what the internet stats tell you, they don’t reflect how many people are sharing it or mailing it to people on their mailing list. The number of people who get to my blog are astronomically greater than my site.
I do think that in this kind of material, whatever criteria advertisers may make…in the Jewish community the numbers will be different than their analysis.
My blog can be found at: www.cross-currents.com .



  1. 2. Speak some to us about the goals of Jewish Religious Education, especially in light of the reach and effectiveness of internet education. Can you tell us what limitations you find in this system, and more, some of the general rules of purpose of your internet teaching?




  1. Religion Writer, Peter Menkin in Mill Valley,
    California


Jewish Religious education has a number of goals. …The two chief goals are to create a new generation of informed, loyal and enthusiastic, committed Jews. That’s a tall order. For many people that would suffice. There is a second level to Jewish Education: the tradition of Judaism is a system of law, not a system of faith. There are 613 Commandments. One is Torah study itself.

Besides [aiding in the making of] the question of Jews who can function well as Jews, [which are]…those who know the function of the law and philosophy. There is a mitzvah of studies for its own sake.

There is a mitzvah of teaching in God’s Torah. So the goals are to maximize on both of those. All the practical things to function as committed Jews, to function for Torah itself, to study for its own sake. There is a mitzvah of immersing oneself.

The issue of Internet education is related to another group of questions. What are the methodologies in general? We understand there are some disciplines that lend themselves to impersonal types of learning. You can sit in Harvard with stars and learn with 350 people in that hall and learn without limitation. You can get 3500 or get people at home to listen, and that works very well for some disciplines. Regarding Online Learning… When you still need eyeball to eyeball contact, you need person to person interaction all the time. That’s where internet study gets dicey.

There are some kinds of study where the Harvard hall works well. Some kinds of Torah literature works better and at all on the spot in real time. I believe there are some parts of education and Torah education that are in the middle. That’s where innovation comes in; they don’t have to act 100 percent in real time all the time, if given access to some of the instructors or teachers after the lecture. That can also work. There are some people carving out programs that are quite effective and reaching large number of teachers to reach large numbers of people: skill sets as one example…also technique.

Talmudic literature is best done one on one, in real time. [So you see]. I don’t teach Talmud as Talmud; I’m doing another part of Jewish learning in general.

You have to know about grammar and language and words to deal with Talmud–for you need real time interaction. To this writer that is literal.


Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein


Here are concrete examples of something that works at Torah.org: One kind of learning– and there are literally dozens of topics and subtopics in Torah learning–there is the study of weekly Torah learning. The five books of Moses have a weekly cycle. For hundreds and hundreds of years Jews have looked at that reading, looking for different insights and styles. There are hundreds of different works out there. Some are deep; but people distill some of that teaching and go back to the original, adapt, paraphrase and present them texturally or orally once a week. I have done the oral presentations much more often. Each year I take a different important text and some attract more attention than others. I will take a couple of points of the weekly portion and convey an adaptation of one of these authors. I’ve done that for a good number of years.



  1. 3. In a phone conversation with you, this paraphrase of one remark by you, Rabbi: “There are quality Yeshiva’s today where everything that’s done is recorded, at least on mp3s, and disseminated. The more traditional religious groups on the ideological continuum. (This expanding interest and use (is) a wide (kind of phenomenon)—(that is) pleased still have access to a wider variety of source materials and personality.” Has Torah.org this kind of resource or offer links to such material. Do you offer such material in your internet teaching, and will you tell us a little about some of these resources in specific—both as example and explanation?
[From the Rabbi’s car while talking via phone on the road home, again the way most of this interview was conducted.]
People 20 years ago had to access [to learning only] by traveling hundreds or thousands of miles. You can get access through mp3s and video recordings. The particular classes I’ve given on Torah.org have been text based and not mp3. I’ve done mp3 and have plans for interactive video teaching.
Strictly speaking on Torah.org, I every week prepare a kind of a class to send out a text. Which is also available on archive. I’ve been giving classes in a variety of institutions for 30 years, and they are now available. People are gathering up old classes and making them available. If you don’t like one, you can go to another. If you want a school that is taping and taping, there is http://www.yutorah.org/index.cfm that has thousands and thousands of classes, mostly by their faculty and alumni. It is very user friendly.
You can see by the index the kinds of things you would like, some of the most sought after people on the internet today: Rabbi Herschel Schachter, Rabbi Willig, Rabbi Dovid Bleich. These are three superstars of Jewish learning.
You have access to hundreds of their tapes. There’s no charge. Some are thirty minute classes, some an hour, some multi hour. You can listen to them online, you can download them. For any individual recording they give you the downloads and how many have listened to them. There are dozens of sites like it. I like yutorah,org because I keep going back to the people with more advanced material. There are other sites both here and in Israel. Some of the greatest scholars alive and inspirational speakers. We are talking about tens of thousands of hours available who can download from any place on the earth. Much of it is in English.
There is a program called Baf Yomi (The Daily Page) that goes through the entire Talmud in 7 years. This August will mark the worldwide conclusion of an entire cycle of the Talmud. There will be celebrations all over the world. There will be one in Meadowlands Stadium, New Jersey. Many people go to a class on a car or a plane.


  1. 4. If there is something I’ve missed, or you want to add or say, please do so before we end our interview. Thank you for your willingness to talk about Religious Education. I am glad again for the opportunity to talk with you by phone.

I do have to stress one thing that I hope you caught along the way. It may not be obvious and certainly won’t be obvious to readers. When most Americans think of religious education, it might be philosophy or a catechism. Jewish Education is so different from that. There are 316 laws in the Torah. Study for Jewish education is not just the study of living in the community. Jewish education is getting as close they get to the mind of God. It is as close as you can get … Torah study is put on a pedestal to come to the limits and depth of a person. When we talk of the internet, we aren’t talking about preparing them for life within the Church. We are trying to get them to get familiar with [a relationship with God].
The Torah is for lifelong learning. The most important that is of interest to people who practice and teach the Torah, is that it is vastly more complicated than in other faiths.
[Regarding what is known as]…the sea of the Talmud, no one gets to immerse themselves with a small part of the ocean. We want to get to people within the visual field of people,,,that the internet is proving to be another tool in the mitzvah of Torah study, and hopefully something people will want to spend more time on.

ADDENDUM I
RABBI WRITES A LETTER TO A STUDENT IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION
Is Turkey Kosher? [An American question re Thanksgiving]



Circa 2007, Thanksgiving turkey


A small contribution to the discussion regarding the kashrut of turkey. It is true that the Gemara describes the features of non-kosher birds. It is also true that the majority of bird species should be kosher by using these criteria. However, this is precisely what we do not do, having lost our confidence in properly understanding the Gemara’s yardsticks. We therefore only eat species for which there is a tradition.
Readers were puzzled as to where such a tradition could have gotten started for a bird entirely unknown in centers of Torah scholarship until colonial American times. The answer is possibly given by Darchei Teshuva, Yoreh Deah, 82:26 He argues (actually citing Arugas Habosem) that we only require a tradition for a bird that we don’t know too much about. In such a case, we do not rely on the presence of the kosher signs. On the other hand, we are permitted to rely on such signs if they are present in many samples of a species we have observed over a long period of time, and have overwhelming evidence that it is not a bird of prey.
Yitzchok Adlerstein Los Angeles

ADDENDUM II
LESSONS

Elul – The Context of Evildoing1

By Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein

“Let the wicked one forsake his way and the iniquitous man his thoughts.”[2] What makes the sinner wicked, if not his actions and deeds? What should the sinner be asked to forsake, if not his evil actions? Why speak about some nebulous “way” rather than his concrete failings?

The road back for the sinner begins with his abandoning his old way, the way that led him so often to evil. Similarly, he must give up the thoughts – the patterns of thinking and outlooks – that form the backdrop and context of his transgression. This is consistent with a theme of the sefarim ha-kedoshim, that the yetzer hora need not lure a person anew for each aveirah, but simply move a person to its territory and turf, an entire world that is a “place” of easy aveirah.
What is the context of evildoing, this “place” of easy wrongdoing? “See, I have placed before you today the life and the good, and the death and the evil….And you shall choose life so that you and your offspring shall live.”[3] Once we can recognize the difference between life and death, do we still need to be urged to choose life?

Indeed we do. Since Hashem wills it that we be given the opportunity to exercise free-will, we must always have competing alternatives. We experience satisfaction in positive building and creating that gives life; there must also be a countervailing pleasure in tearing down and destroying. The yetzer hora can influence a person to enjoy destruction, to find joy in activities that harm him and reactions like anger and tear him apart. Even worse, it can persuade him to enjoy destroying others.

We watch curiously as toddlers seem to delight in breaking things, and do not realize that adults are not entirely different. They, too, enjoy causing havoc and chaos. This carries over to the community as well. We observe nations gleefully dedicated to nothing more than the destruction of other nations, investing enormous energy into the development of greater destructive capacity against the other. Destructiveness has become, as it were, a vital force within human civilization.

Character flaws also populate this background of evildoing. Rambam writes,[4] “Do not say that teshuvah applies only to sins involving action. Just as a person must repent of those, he must also examine his evil traits, and repent of anger and hatred and jealously and frivolousness and the pursuit of money and honor and gluttony.” This is also implied in the phrase “Let the wicked one forsake his way,” rather than his sins. So long as a person has not addressed his flaws of character, he is in the thrall of the yetzer hora even when he does nothing actively wrong. (Yesod Ha-Avodah offers a mashal of a king who seeks to prepare his son for eventual rule, and wishes to best prepare his inner qualities. While the prince is in the company of his father, the son’s inner core cannot be discerned. The king sends the prince to a distant part of the realm. There, where the king’s authority is present but not overt, the prince’s true nature expresses itself. The prince is able to discern his own flaws. Realizing that the day approaches when he will be reunited with his father, the prince prepares for the encounter. He feels within himself that the better the job he does in improving his core qualities, the better he is able to think about and prepare for his future encounters with the king. Yesod Ha-Avodah likens the descent of the soul to this world to the prince sent from the presence of the Father.)

Another component of the landscape of evildoing is tunnel vision regarding the majesty of Creation. Animals walk on all fours. Their long axis runs parallel to the ground; their eyes are often fixed on the ground in front of them. Their world, therefore, is their feeding trough. Man, however, walks erect. He lifts up his head and sees afar. He can see G-d within the fullness of His Creation.

Some people do not escape their animal selves. They, too, live a limited existence. Grown people find it amusing when they watch a young child’s attachment to a worthless plaything. If that toy is taken away from the child, he wails as if his world had come to an end. But are adults so different? With what do they preoccupy themselves? What makes them happy? About what do they fritter away valuable time worrying? Are any of those things comparable to the Torah and mitzvos that could gain them eternity? Are adults different from children, or have they merely replaced one kind of toy with another?

Chazal had this in mind when they wrote[5] “A person does not sin unless a spirit of lunacy enters into him.” This lunacy is a worldview in which the trivial and unimportant become his objects of pursuit. (The Saba Kadisha used to say that in every aveirah, the spirit of lunacy and folly accounts for 99% of his decision; concession to the yetzer hora amounts to only the remaining 1%.)

When a person lives with constricted understanding, everything surrounding him is limited and shriveled. His Torah is narrow; it fails to fill the depth and breadth of halachah. His avodah is constricted; he fails to “taste and see that Hashem is good.”[6]

There is a context and backdrop to teshuvah as well. Its most important element is the thirst of the holy spark within each person – the portion of Hashem from Above – for its root and source. The Jewish soul always thirsts for more, each person according to his spiritual level. Only the person whose multiple sins have done severe damage to his personality can be stripped of the emotional longing of the typical Jew. This thirst is what neutralizes the destruction-bent forces within the yetzer hora.

Making use of this teshuvah context follows a discrete pattern. The Tur begins Shulchan Aruch by reminding us how aveiros are committed: “The eye sees, the heart desires, and the limbs complete the action.” Teshuvah works similarly. First, a person must turn his eyes upward, and behold Who has created everything. The heart is then aroused, and thirsts for connection with Divinity. The limbs then allow the person to right his course and become a ba’al teshuvah in the active sense.

Part of the context of teshuvah is listening. When the Torah describes national repentance, it writes,[7] “And you will return to Hashem your G-d and listen to His voice.” We would have expected the Torah to write “and you will do all that I have commanded you.” Instead, the Torah instructs us regarding the first step in teshuvah, after we have moved to a teshuvah context. We first must listen to the sound of Hashem knocking[8] on the walls of our hearts. We must realize, as the Besht taught, that the Heavenly voice which calls us each day to teshuvah[9] may not be heard physically by us, but the neshamah does listen – and takes heed.

In the final analysis, teshuvah depends upon our taking action. Placing our inner selves within the context of teshuvah, inspiring ourselves spiritually and intellectually, and taking pains to hear the voices bidden us return – all these are insufficient. They cannot make us ba’alei teshuvah without concomitant action.
This action does not simply mean distancing ourselves from aveirah. We need to turn the inspiration into individually-tailored action, addressing the core flaws and problems of which we become conscious. The Bais Yosef, for instance, addressed stiff-neckedness not through reflection alone. Realizing the importance of bending his will to that of the Creator, it is said that he loaded rocks upon his shoulders, to physically cause him to bend. This is a perfect example of giving substance to an inner realization by coupling it with action.

[1] Based on Nesivos Shalom vol.1 pg. 209-212 [2] Yeshaya 55:2 [3] Devarim 30: 15, 19 [4] Hilchos Teshuvah 7:3 [5] Sotah 3A [6] Tehilim 34:9 [7] Devarim 30:2 [8] An allusion to Shir Ha-Shirim 5:2 [9] Zohar 3:126A

Text Copyright © 2009 by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein and Torah.org




The Basics of Inner Purity 1
Chazal speak in such powerful and absolute terms about the importance of midos, that you might think they are using a bit of hyperbole. When they look for a definite line in the sand differentiating “us” and “them,” they turn to midos. (“Whoever possesses these three things – a generous eye, a humble spirit, a meek soul – is among the disciples of Avraham; whoever possesses… [their opposite] is among the disciples of the wicked Bilam.”[2]When they attempt to paint a picture of the person who pleases his Creator, they again turn to midos. (“Whomever the spirit of the public finds pleasing, Hashem finds pleasing.”[2]

They are not exaggerating. Attaining excellent midos is not just an important mitvah, incumbent upon every person to pursue. Rather, midos are the person! They are foundational to the observance of Torah and mitzvos, and fully determine whether or not a person can be said to have accomplished the task for which he was created. (If they are so important, asked R. Chaim Vital in Sha’arei kedushah, why don’t they appear on the list of the 613 mitzvos? The answer, he said, is that they are the all-important preparation for all the mitzvos. In that sense, a deficiency in midos is a more serious lapse than failure to observe mitzvos!) Without proper midos, taught Rabbenu Yonah, Torah cannot take up residence within a person. Sandwiched in between a description of the attitudinal foundations of Torah belief and his detailed listing of all the practical laws of the Torah, the Rambam found it necessary to place his Hilchos De’os, describing the midos that he saw as primary in the quest for mitzvah fulfillment.

Good midos are the wings with which a person takes spiritual flight. Without them, a person’s Torah and mitzvos are not able to soar. To whatever extent a person perfects his midos, his entire being is uplifted, raising up his Torah and avodah to a higher plane. For this very reason the yetzer hora shows unusual strength and tenacity in this arena. More so than in other areas, the yetzer hora wishes to clip our wings, so that we cannot elevate ourselves. As the ba’alei mussar say, it is easier to become proficient in shasthan to uproot a single evil midah that has taken hold in our heart.
Good character is readily endorsed by most people. Those who show exemplary midos win profuse praise from the masses. Ba’alei mussar are even more enthusiastic in describing the importance of midos. To them, midos are everything: they define the person. chassidus provides the conceptual framework for building an even taller pedestal upon which to place proper midos. chassidus sees devekus as the objective of all Torah and mitzvos. Imperfect midos simply do not allow that closeness and relationship – “the cursed cannot attach themselves to the blessed.” [3]

In the way of chassidus, acquiring superlative midos is insufficient. A person must also extirpate the evil from within; he must change his very being so that these sterling midos become part of his essence. As is stated in Peri Ha-Aretz, what good is it that a person does not violate any transgression if he has not erased the source of transgression from his heart?

The gemara informs us about a survival tactic. “Whenever Yisrael [envelop themselves in a talis as HKBH demonstrated to Moshe and] perform the order of the thirteen midos, they are immediately answered.”[4] Reishis Chochmah, however, cites those who find difficulty with this claim. Do we not see many people and communities reciting the thirteen midos, without their prayers bringing them much success? They answer the question. “Performing” here does not mean reciting. It means emulating those midos of Hashem, and integrating them into their personalities.

Happiness is working on oneself and achieving pure midos. Good midos bring happiness; bad midos bring the opposite. The days of a person burdened by bad midos are full of anger and bitterness. He consumes others, and is consumed himself in the process. He is not tolerated by others, not can he tolerate the company of men. Thus, his life ceases to be one worthwhile living. One who is privileged to have purified his midos, on the other hand, is always happy. He delights in others, and others delight in him. He is a source of berachah to himself and all around him. (This is what Hashem meant when He told Avraham, “and you will be a blessing.” )

Rambam provides a startling anecdote[5] about perfected midos. “A chassid was asked, ‘What was the happiest day of your life?’ This is what he answered. ‘I traveled by boat. My place was the least desirable, lowliest of all on the vessel. One of the passengers saw me as so insignificant and degraded that he relieved himself upon me. By the life of Hashem – I was not pained by what he did, and my anger did not rise within me. I was overjoyed that the disgrace did not pain me, and that I did not sustain any hurt from it.’” Another person would have seen that day as the worst imaginable, treated in such a disgraced manner. The chassid saw his achievement of ultimate forbearance as grounds for ecstatic happiness.

The recipe for success in midos development includes an ingredient not immediately recognizable as part of the midos orbit. Ultimately all issues of good and evil revolve around a single central point: kedushah. No one can perfect his midos without having incorporated kedushah in his life. As Ramban[6] explains, the call to kedushah includes what is permissible according to halachah, what has not been proscribed by the Torah. kedushah means elevating the arena of reshus.
The two must work in tandem. We work on perfecting our inner midos, while endeavoring to increase the kedushah of the way we live our lives. Keeping both of these goals before us, we can hope to “ascend the mountain of Hashem.”[7]

1. Based on Nesivos Shalom, vol. 1, pgs. 75-77 2. Avos 3:17 3. Rashi Bereishis 24:39 4. Bereishis 12:2 5. Commentary to Mishnah, Avos 4:4 6. Vayikra 19:2 7. Tehilim 24:3

Text Copyright © 2009 by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein and Torah.org




How Shabbos Works1
Use a word often enough and you can convince yourself that you know what it means. The Torah employs the word “kedushah” so often in regard to Shabbos, that we can easily lull ourselves into accepting it just so.

At least until we start thinking about it. Then we realize that we are more comfortable associating kedushah with objects than with time. 1 How are we to understand the Torah’s designating Shabbos as kodesh – and its multiple repetitions of that designation?
We could offer a suggestion. When the Torah tells us that Hashem blessed Shabbos and made it holy,” it does not mean just that He turned it into a special or elevated time. Rather, it means that He made Shabbos the root and source of all blessing, and the wellspring from which all kedushah flows. From this understanding we will be able to make sense of many other phenomena about Shabbos.
Kabbalistically, there is a ready explanation for seeing Shabbos as the source of all kedushah. On Shabbos alone, the light of the three most elevated sefiros is allowed to radiate to the other seven. This light is the spiritual substance of all the kedushah we experience – and it makes its way into our world specifically on Shabbos.

Some works explain the special quality of kedushah on Shabbos in terms of greater resistance to forces of evil that dilute or mask kedushah at other times. We understand that as a consequence of Hashem’s insistence on creating balance between the good and evil (and therefore leaving room for our choosing between them), any display of kedushah is met with resistance from its opposite. Kedushah attracts its foil, which masks and mutes it. Consequentially, we must view good and evil as a single continuum. Where good leaves off, evil immediately begins, in the form of the ten negative sefiros of tumah. On Shabbos, writes the Pri Etz Chaim, Hashem creates a buffer between the good and the evil. Good can be manifest without being set upon, as it were, by the forces of impurity.
Alternatively, we can simply view Shabbos as a presence of kedushah (coming as it does from the three most elevated sefiros) with which tumah simply is unable to coexist, and is banished from its presence.

As the source of all kedushah, Shabbos can provide us with the beginning of a framework to solve an enigmatic problem. Meor Eynayim questions how humans can ever imagine themselves connected to Hashem. Even in our puny understanding, we realize that there should be no way for this to occur. Hashem is infinite and limitless. We are stuck in limitation and dimensionality – not just different from G-d, but in a sense the polar opposite. We might yearn for connection to Him, but such attachment should be impossible. It can be poetry, but not real.

He answers that our devekus comes through something that is intermediate between the two end points, which acts as a kind of binding agent between us. This intermediate is Shabbos itself. It is not, of course, a divine being, but its kedushah does come from Him. On the other hand, it is accessible enough that we can bind to it, and through it, to Hashem.

The Torah begins a listing of holidays with a restatement of the mitzvah of Shabbos. (We pithily make reference to this in the siddur, in speaking of Shabbos as techilah l’mikra’ei kodesh – the first among holy days.) People have long puzzled over this. In what way does Shabbos belong to the special, seasonal observances of the holy days, of the yearly circuit around the calendar? Our thinking thus far may provide a satisfying answer to the question. Shabbos is first and primary in the list of holidays, because all of the kedushah resident in the special days of the calendar derive from what is made available to us on Shabbos. Remove Shabbos from the picture, and you are left with a blank. There simply cannot be any holidays without drawing from the kedushah that Hashem makes available to us on Shabbos.

We could stop at this point, having found a deeper meaning to the kedushah of Shabbos, and content with the pleasure of enriched understanding. There is fulfillment to be found simply in comprehending things properly, even when those things are abstractions. We would be selling ourselves short, however. The surfeit of kedushah on Shabbos translates directly into a different experience of Shabbos. The dividends to us are practical, not just theoretical.

Toras Avos explained the difference between Shabbos and Yom Tov with a mashal. Yom Tov is analogous to a king, who decides to leave the regal comforts that ordinarily surround him, in order to visit his impoverished son and spend time with him in his humble abode. Shabbos, however, can be likened to the king finding the son and transporting him to spend time together in the royal palace. In other words, on Yom Tov, Hashem illuminates the lives of Jews on whatever spiritual plane they inhabit. He comes to us, and spreads kedushah within our flawed, corrupt world. On Shabbos, on the other hand, he enables us to escape our limitations and to join Him in His inner chambers.

When we say that Shabbos is a bit of Olam Habo, we do not just mean that we find so much happiness and contentment in it, that we sense that it comes to us from a very great distance. What we really mean is that Shabbos takes us to a different world, that it transports us back to Gan Eden, where we function on a plane superior to that of ordinary existence! (Chumash alludes to this. We are aware of the tension between the Names of G-d in the story of Bereishis. Creation takes place with the Name Elokim, or din, alone, signifying the establishing of lawful and predictable Nature. With Man’s formation, unvarnished judgment is an insufficient characteristic to sustain a world in which he would commit many sins. Rachamim, compassion, needed to be added; the Four-Letter Name thus appears. Looking at the text more carefully, however, we realize that the Name of Havayah is not used immediately after the creation of Man, but shows up only after Shabbos is described. Havayah, in contradistinction to the Nature implied by Elokim, refers to transcending Nature, rising above it. This happens only through the creation of Shabbos itself.)

Shabbos is very much part of the system of holidays, of the mikra’ei kodesh. As we explained above, that system would fail without it, since it supplies the kedushah to all the other special days. This is why the list of holidays includes Shabbos. Shabbos, however, is treated to a designation that the other days are not. It is called “kodesh,” without any modifiers, because it is the source of all kedushah. The other days are appropriately referred to as mikra’ei kodesh, days called to kedushah. They achieve their holiness only by our calling to them, by our preparations and readying ourselves, by our isr’usa d’lesasa. The kedushah of Shabbos inheres in it. It is fully there, brought to us through isr’usa d’l’eila.

Because Shabbos does not function in this world, but takes us to a place above it, Man can achieve on Shabbos accomplishments that are beyond his ordinary grasp, above Nature. Chazal 2 describe Hashem’s instructions to Moshe about relating the laws of Shabbos to Bnei Yisrael. “I have a wonderful gift in my house of treasures. It’s name is Shabbos. Go forth and make it known to them!” Why is Shabbos called a wonderful gift, while other mitzvos are not? Because only Shabbos takes us elsewhere – to the house of treasures, which exists not here, but in Gan Eden.

1So much of the Torah concerns itself with the Bais HaMikdosh and its attendant levels of holiness. There, we encounter holy space, holy utensils, and materials that become sanctified to Hashem. We may be conscious of the fact that the word “kadosh” means set aside, and could see kedushah as merely a description of specialness, of the way we treat something, be it objects, space or time. Our knowledge of halachah, however, has gotten us used to seeing kedushah as something substantive, as a quality that is resident in an object. It is hard to then see kedushah as applying to time. 2 Shabbos 10A

Text Copyright © 2008 by Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein and Torah.org


This article by Peter Menkin appeared originally Church of England Newspaper, London. To reach the writer of it, Peter Menkin: pmenkin@att.net or leave a comment.
 

Interview: Yale Institute of Sacred Music; two significant people talk Christian music

Martin Jean, Director tells of the Institute's purpose, and new Yale Institute of Sacred Music Fellow, David Stowe talk of their work and the Institute--some history in exploration of Christianity's American side with David Stowe
by Peter Menkin



Mean Tone Organ


In an effort to discover in what singular way this Religion Writer could uncover the work of Yale Institute of Sacred Music, to discover what the Institute does, and even take a look at how the Institute of Sacred Music explores Christianity, these two interviews were developed. The first is with Martin Jean, Director of the Institute. He speaks directly with the reader about the Institute. The second interview is with new Fellow of the Institute for Sacred Music, David Stowe. He exemplifies one aspect of exploring Christianity and looking at Sacred Music.

INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN JEAN
martin.jean@yale.edu


Martin Jean, Director, Yale Institute of Sacred Music
  1. 1. Peter Menkin: For some time music in Church and Sacred Music in the Christian tradition has engaged me in so many ways. You are in the unique position, Doctor Martin Jean, of getting a special perspective as Director of Yale Institute of Sacred Music of music played in worship–and that same music played in the larger world. Talk to us of the Sacred Music program at Yale. In fact, an introduction to the Institute seems appropriate at this time as we enter into this interview.
We were founded here at Yale in 1973, a direct descendant of the Union School for Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary. At that time the Irwin Sweeney Miller Foundation gave a grant to Yale to begin the Institute. Their faculty moved here from New York and started our Institute of Sacred Music.
We’ve very much carried forward the tradition of sacred music, and related arts. Our musicians go on to become pastors, church musicians, lay leaders—but they leave here with an understanding of the role in religious life [of music and their own role]. We’ve had Bruce Neswick who is now Professor of Organ at Indiana University and former choir director at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. He is an improviser. [Among many others.]
Our students graduate and some will become Church musicians and some will become performers. We graduated a very fine performer who is going to sing at New York Philharmonic, and one who is a Soprano who will sing with St. Louis Bach Society. Those two singers I just mentioned are up and coming oratorio singers; when Dan is singing he is singing the Evangelist role which is commonly heard on the concert stage – in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
I’m awfully proud of our faculty, and music especially our primary goal–to find a music teachers who will help you the most. We have a great

World class tenor Taylor

organ teacher, and music teacher. In the liturgical tradition are some of the great scholars in the world: Thomas Murray is my senior colleague in organ, and he is the college organist. He is very well known. Our Tenor is named James R. Taylor; he is not the pop singer. He’s a world class tenor. You can say that with impunity.


  1. 2. Peter Menkin: Being chosen as a Fellow at Yale Institute of Sacred Music is a prize, and a competition. You were among those instrumental in making that choice for this year’s Fellows. I note you are also a Judge for music prizes elsewhere: In July, Martin Jean served on the jury for the 2011 Competitions of the St. Albans International Organ Festival. The annual 10-day festival draws young organists from around the world who compete in various categories. (August 2011). Is there a difference in choosing a Prize Winner and making decisions on who may be a Fellow in a given year? Tell us a little of the Institute’s need for Fellows, and how they contribute to the Yale Institute of Sacred Music of which you are Director?
I’m involved with the selections, but I sit in more ex officio in the process and let the rest of the selection committee make the decision. We are looking for someone more in line with our mission; if someone is writing on sacred music, we want them to write about not only the music but the religious context. It’s that we are looking at the current work they are doing, but we are really testing their track record. If someone is writing on hymns used in worship, tell us something about that. I was just reviewing David Stowe, and what might helpful is the project he is making on Psalm 137.
[First two paragraphs from David Stowe’s proposal. He is a Fellow, 2013, Institute of Sacred Music. David W. Stowe has written widely on music and religion in American culture, including No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism (2011); How Sweet the Sound: Music in the Spiritual Lives of Americans (2004), which won a Deems Taylor award from ASCAP; and Swing Changes: Big Band Jazz in New Deal America (1994), which was published in Japanese in 1999. He is professor of English and Religious Studies at Michigan State University, where he served as director of the Program in American Studies. Stowe taught for three years at the Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha University in Kyoto, where he also served as associate dean. He is a founding member of the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Culture, a research institute based in Lansing, Michigan. At Yale, Stowe will research and complete the manuscript for his next book entitled Babylon Revisited: How Psalm 137 Helped Americans Make a Nation, charting the subtle changes in emphasis and interpretation of a thirteen-line Hebrew poem to help make new sense of religious, musical, and political change in North America.

From the Proposal to Yale Institute for Sacred Music as Fellow:
I hope to spend my fellowship year at the Institute of Sacred Music researching and completing a book manuscript, Babylon Revisited: How Psalm 137 Helped Americans Make a Nation. My premise is that charting the subtle changes in emphasis and interpretation of a thirteen-line Hebrew poem helps make new sense of religious, musical, and political change in North America. Babylon Revisited will build on my expertise in U.S. cultural history, religious studies, and ethnomusicology, and allow me to expand a forthcoming article into a book.
No song text has exerted a more sustained pull on the political imagination
of Americans than Psalm 137. The text figured in the worship of the English
Puritans who settled New England, appearing in the first English-language book published in America. It inspired the unique genius of composer William Billings and the oratory of Frederick Douglass. More than a century later it reappeared in a completely new musical guise, reggae. Since then, Psalm 137 has been covered numerous times in a wide variety musical styles: gospel, disco, country rock, alternative, hip-hop.]


This program we began three years ago and we saw it as a way to reach out beyond our own disciplinary borders. There is also an opportunity to create a community of scholars around sacred music and the arts. They will be part of a weekly program of sharing works, critiquing each other’s works, teaching students and being a voice at the table. A way to deepen and expand our own commitment to these areas of inquiry.
The class we just announced is the third set of scholars and we think it’s going terrifically. We’re learning of their work by their application and the quality of their work contributes enormously to bring new ideas to the table.
I think what our students are getting from it is respect for the enormous diversity of sacred music in the world. We are learning about more cultures and different community groups of people. By bringing people here, students are becoming more diversely grounded. That is a need of churches today. They don’t look like they did in the fifties. They are reaching out beyond race divides, class divides, gender divides.

  1. 3. Peter Menkin: By the research done on the Institute of Sacred Music’s website it is apparent you are active in the Lutheran Church. In fact, you serve on the Lutheran Music Program Board, who says of you: martin.jean@yale.edu Dr. Jean is Professor of Organ at the Yale School of Music and Director of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Prior to assuming his position at Yale, he served as Associate Professor of Music and University Organist at Valparaiso University in Indiana and as Associate Professor of Music at Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan and has commercial recordings on the Raven and Gothic labels. Congregation: Bethesda Lutheran Church, New Haven, CT Why LSM? LSM has been a life-changing experience for thousands of young people. They learn to perform at the highest level with peers that quickly become their friends, and they have the opportunity to offer these gifts in worship every day. Lutheran Music Program transforms lives and connects people through faith and music. The three values which we embrace are musical excellence, Lutheran faith and a nurturing community. Our vision is to see churches and communities renewed through music for the sake of the world. Tell us how sacred music brings faith, and nurtures the community as it connects with people’s lives in the world. Is this the whole reason to be of the Institute of Sacred Music, too?

The purpose of the institute is to train not only scholars, but people who will work with people’s lives. Worship that they lead and create has music as an important component. I’m always reminded of what people in pastoral care tell me. Awful as people who are in their death beds may be, the things that mean the most to them are the hymns that they learned–grew up learning. As they fade in memory, it is the hymns they learned they recall. I suppose the ways we pray, the works of we engage in in worship, whether musical or textual, they play a role in creating community identity. Repeated patterns of worship give community life and shape and worship. They give people an identity because of these patterns of worship. People who studied 50 years ago thought of what their creeds were, now it is how do they pray, what does the room look like….

  1. 4. Peter Menkin: In specific, this Religion Writer wants to focus on new Fellow David Stowe, Will you tell us a little about Professor Stowe, the book he is working on, and how it contributes to the Institute of Sacred Music, either in general or specific. I am most interested in the contemporary nature of American sacred music in this section of our series of questions. David Stowe fits this bill. Do other Fellows?
You’ll learn about the book he’s working on by their project proposal. He’s working on a book on how one particular Psalm has been treated in American music, Psalm 137. You can also get his biography off the Michigan State website. David Stowe has a PhD in history from Michigan State in the 90s, and he’s written on sacred music in America. His focus is the history in America. We don’t have anybody who has interest in music right now. He is planning to teach a course on Sacred Music. From my perspective, the thing that is pertinent, as religious traditions moved from Europe to the United States, they changed. A German Lutheran musician tends to be the same, but when a German Lutheran musician moves to the United States, he finds himself living next to people of a different denomination. He gets to see change, and being new he tends to change, for example there aren’t that many Presbyterians in Germany. He is looking at how different traditions come to the State and migrate in the States, I think.
It’s impossible to make one or two general statements that are true for everybody. It is still a melting pot. One way is how Christians have co-opted the contemporary Christian music, CCM. Religious people have always been using the sounds around them, using songs around them in the street and change the words in church—Luther did that. The contemporary religious music has grown because it is linked to a for profit industry.
There are things that I like, personally. Most people would define it as something that is supported by electric guitar, electric bass. It is a diverse genre and has blurry edges. It is influenced by the global pop phenomenon.

  1. 5. Peter Menkin: You play the organ. It is written of you: As a concert artist, Jean has performed widely throughout the United States and Europe and is known for his broad repertorial interests. He has won two of the most prestigious music prizes in the world: He was awarded first place at both the International Grand Prix de Chartres in 1986 and at the 1992 National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance. Is there time in your schedule to do much in the way of playing organ at Yale, or in other locales outside the University? Most importantly, tell us about the program of offering musical works by Fellows and others at the University. And of course, a highlight on this year’s program with the reasons for the choice of performer and the work performed?
As far as myself, I play plenty…thanks for asking. Being an administrator limits my time for performing. One of the big things at the end of the year…Misako will perform … a Haydn Heath creation. Just coming this week there is a group from Ireland who will perform sacred music from Ireland. Another choir will sing Partrt , Arvo…it’s his passion, a choral work. The public can come, all our events are free. We get great crowds. We’re an educational institute; we’re here to teach not only our students about sacred music, and to teach the public. One way to teach students is to have them teach in public. People learn in both an intellectual and personal level, controlled by the intrusive interests of the art. Yale.edu.im…Look for details on up and coming programs.

NOTES ON MARTIN JEAN
Newberry Memorial Organ


The Newberry Memorial Organ in Woolsey Hall at Yale University is one of the most important pipe organs in the United States. Originally constructed by the Hutchings-Votey Company in 1902, entirely rebuilt and enlarged by J.W. Streere & Son Organ Company in 1915, and finally rebuilt and enlarged by the Skinner Organ Company in 1928, the instrument has remained virtually unchanged since that time. Martin Jean is the Director of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) and is Professor of Organ at ISM and the School of Music. As a concert artist, Jean has performed widely throughout the United States and Europe and is known for his broad repertorial interests. He has won two of the most prestigious music prizes in the world: He was awarded first place at both the International Grand Prix de Chartres in 1986 and at the 1992 National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance. This video was filmed on a Saturday morning some time ago by Joe Vitacco and edited together by Vic Ferrer. A full stop-list of this organ is available by going to http://www.thompson-allen.com/woolsey.html A double CD of Professor Thomas Murray — the University Organist at Yale – playing this organ with an audio narrated tour and a 72-page booklet on the organ is available going to http://www.pipeorgancds.com/thommurplayw1.html.
Copyright © 2003. Yale Institute of Sacred Music 409 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511 Telephone: 203 432 5180 Fax: 203 432 5296

Martin Jean martin.jean@yale.edu
Professor of organ, professor in the practice of sacred music, and director of the Institute of Sacred Music.
Martin Jean has performed widely throughout the United States and Europe and is known for his broad repertorial interests. He was awarded first place at the international Grand Prix de Chartres in 1986, and in 1992 at the National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Performance. A student of Robert Glasgow, in the fall of 1999 he spent a sabbatical with Harald Vogel in North Germany. He has performed on four continents and in nearly all fifty states. In 2001 he presented a cycle of the complete organ works of Bach at Yale, and his compact discs of The Seven Last Words of Christ by Charles Tournemire and the complete Six Symphonies of Louis Vierne, both recorded in Woolsey Hall, have been released by Loft Recordings. Recordings of the organ symphonies and Stations of the Cross of Marcel Dupré are forthcoming on the Delos label. He is on the faculty of Yale School of Music and the Institute of Sacred Music, which he directs, and serves on the board of directors of the Lutheran Music Program(www.lutheransummermusic.org). A.Mus.D., University of Michigan.




INTERVIEW WITH NEW FELLOW DAVID STOWE


Peter Menkin: You’ve stated that your study of Sacred Music and its relationship to modern Christian music will influence your work as an Institute of Sacred Music Fellowat Yale for this year ending 2013. Your work has been ongoing for some
years, and this quote describing a radio interview tells of your modern Christian music theme, touching on the profound interest you express in Psalm 137 and aspects of American sacred music history: The so-called “Jesus Movement” of the late 1960s and ’70s ushered an unprecedented amount of modern music into Christian churches. Guest host Jacqueline Cincotta explores the roots of contemporary Christian music with David Stowe, author of the new book “No Sympathy for the Devil.”That interview on radio is here. Talk to us about your plans for your new book that you will work on while an ISM Fellows in Sacred Music, Worship, and the Arts. But first a quotation from your Project Proposal:
The psalm’s opening lines are among the better known from the Hebrew
Bible:

By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down, yea, we wept,
when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song;
and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?

The remaining five verses pledge faithfulness to Jerusalem and vow vengeance
against the enemies of Israel, whose “little ones” will ultimately be dashed “against
the stones.”
This new project that brings things up to the contemporary period stretches back a few hundred years to the Pilgrim Fathers. I am looking at a long stretch, a 13 line poem that you include in the question. That’s been given many interpretations.

[This short excerpt from David Stowe’s proposal for Fellowship at Yale’s Institute for Sacred Music comes at the end of his proposal:


David Stowe

Psalm 137 was eminently adaptable to the dominant political cause of thenineteenth century: the abolition of slavery. We don’t know if its lines were
adopted by African Americans in their covert worship, though the Exodus story
inspired a number of spirituals. Frederick Douglass made Psalm 137 central to his
famous 1852 address, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Drawing his own
analogy between the fallen Israel and the slavery-corrupted United States, Douglass
cites v the opening verses of Psalm 137, “the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe smitten
people.” The practice of coercing slaves to perform “merry songs” to
disguise the appearance of sorrow gave the psalm particular poignancy.
These social and political accents shaped musical adaptations of Psalm 137
over the next century. The great Detroit preacher Rev. C. L. Franklin, whose New
Bethel Baptist Church hosted many leading gospel stars mid-century, based a
famous sermon on the psalm. He argued that the Hebrews were wrong not to sing;
African Americans should voice their sacred songs in the face of oppression. In
1969 a Jamaican group recorded a hit version that substituted Rastafarian language
(“How can we sing King Alpha’s song in a strange land?”) and the exhortation to
“Shout the song of freedom now.”…)]
In that last book [of mine\ I really focused on one particular decade, the 1070s, and so this new project stretches back around four hundred years and looks at some unexpected uses of that psalm in American history. I’m trying a different approach in this book. All my other books have been in standard historical sources, magazines, news sources, and letters. I’m planning to do a series of interviews with living authorities on living actors for the book. I plan to go visit actual places that were significant in this Psalm and in the lives of famous American who have drawn on this Psalm 137.
For instances Frederick Douglas gave a speech up in Rochester, or I may go to the main Frederick Douglas archives. I want to approach this book as a kind of reporter, not just delving into a lot of historical sources. I will interview whoever is in charge of the archives or a biographer who is familiar with his religious ideas. John Stauffer is a Harvard Professor familiar with his religious thoughts. He doesn’t know about this yet.
Frederick Douglas drew on the language of the Bible, the familiar stories of the Bible, the Exodus story and the Babylonian Captivity. Like a lot of enslaved African Americans he held conflicted opinions because so many slave holders professed Christianity and used slavery to justify slavery. In the case of Frederick Douglas, he was the first of well-known Americans to draw attention to slave spirituals and emphasize their significance.
Go Down Moses, Steal Away, Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, There’s a Balm in Gilead (that one has a good Biblical basis.) The Fisk University Jubilee Singers from Nashville, they’ve been singing those old slave spirituals for 150 years. You can probably find some samples on YouTube. If you look on YouTube there will be an example on there.
Fisk University was a school that was established after the Civil War during reconstruction by the Freedman’s Bureau. It was a fundraising effort by the University. So they assembled this choir and sent them out to give concerts, and they struck a responsive nerve and attracted the attention of some famous ministers in the North, Henry Ward Beecher, who was deeply moved by their spiritual song. This was in the 1870s. This is ten years after the civil war.



I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray-Fisk University Jubilee Quartet


From Nashville TN. USA comes the famous Fisk University Jubilee Quartet. Since 1871 they have traveled the world spreading spiritual singing. Their newest CD release is "Bright Mansions". "I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" was released in 1909.




Go Down Moses - Sullivan's Travels (1941)




Uploaded by jorgecurioso on Apr 16, 2008
Jess Lee Brooks performing the classic spiritual. From the 1941 Preston Sturges movie "Sullivan's Travels", starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake.




They were spiritual songs, they were songs that slaves created for their own private worship, often covert worship out of range of the masters, and they were songs based on Biblical themes. They were worship songs that helped them persevere; struggle and they were as much sacred songs as they were in the mainline churches. Go Down Moses is based on the Exodus service; it is drenched in Biblical language and purpose and they were set in worship settings.
I don’t think anyone questions the old spirituals as being sacred songs. Everyone recognizes that the enslaved Africans were performing a form of Christianity. They were just as significant as the songs of Charles Wesley for the white Protestants. Their being picked up had a lot to do with the Fisk Jubilees singers, who were singing for the royalty of Europe--for Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm. They were picked up by other choirs, primarily black colleges forming their own choirs. A lot of white people liked them as well. They were beautiful, moving songs. They spread at the top through prominent people in the 19th Century and Royalty--and spread through the grassroots.
You can ask that question about any hymn or any Mass, presumably there is some divine inspiration whether it be Bach or field hand in Mississippi that leads them to create those words and that melody. I just assume that if the song deals with Christian themes and helps people survive as religion often does…religion is a great means of survival. If it uses Biblical language and is used for worship, I do not think anyone can say how God directs them. If they are used in worship today, they create that sense of transcendence for contemporary worshippers. In that way they are sacred. That is really a test of whether these songs are significantly sacred: whether they continue to be performed and keep people in touch with their deepest human yearnings—spiritual yearnings. If they make people feel closer to God, then they are sacred songs.

Peter Menkin: Speak about 137 and both why and how you find it inspiring and historic? Will you also tell us something about your plans for working in an interdisciplinary fashion with other Fellows, and how you’ll find this work inspiring and helpful for your book? I recall in our initial telephone conversation of March 2012 that you said art, too, would be an inspiration for your writing and research work on this history project in Sacred Music.
If you look at the interests and backgrounds of the other Fellows at Yale, you’ll see that their coming from different disciplines; they use difference approaches to music and history and I will get a lot of new approaches to my work. I am very interested in connecting my work to the visual arts – in other artists who have depicted 137 over history. I don’t know who those artists are yet. It can up in an interview I had with one of the faculty I had, and she said there have been a number of famous depictions I can use for my book.
There’s just the stimulation of being around people I’ve not met before who are working on projects I’ve not selected. They are pretty good, and I’ll get a lot of ideas. Someone might say did you ever think of this, or are you familiar with this stained glass. That’s the fun part of scholarly work. That’s where you’re learning from other people. Scholarly work is a very solitary profession, mostly. I hope to get down to Jamaica to get down seeing some of the musicians who made Rivers of Babylon.
I want to go back to the Church in Detroit where Aretha Franklin’s father was, where he preached about Psalm 137. So he preached a famous sermon about it. It would be nice to talk to the present minister and find out what that Psalm means for 2012 and how it affects the Christian outlook in that Church today.
I would like to interview Stephen Schwartz who created Godspell. He wrote the music to Godspell, and they did a version of 137 right there in Godspell. I’d like to know why he did that, Godspell is basically out of the book of Matthew. These are some of the interviews I’d like to get and feature some of those interviews in the book, rather than bury the conversations somewhere.
It’s not that I chose Psalm 137 that I am a huge fan of that Psalm, I am just struck by the fact that it seems to resonate for so long. In my research I hope to come up with a convincing explanation. I hope to come up with why this Psalm has inspired so many uses, music, speeches and sermons. I think it is also an interesting Psalm because it is really short.
It is a poem in three sections: the first part is the collective WE about Us and We as exiled Jews; the second part is really kind of – how do we say it – kind of a self-warning to retain the speaker’s culture (Remember Jerusalem and ask God for punishment if the speaker forgets his cultural roots). The third section is the very violent, grisly, call for vengeance against the Babylonian cultures. The final line about smashing their babies against the rocks. That is a jarring version. It’s been dropped from the musical part. It is not a sentiment that fits well in the modern religious sensibility. I think that is still an impulse we find in American society. I think there is still a feeling for vengeance that American’s have not really overcome. It is an intriguing Psalm.
This Psalm is the only Psalm that has a particular geographic setting, as in the rivers of Babylon where we sat down. It is the only Psalm set in a specific location, and significantly historic locations.

Peter Menkin: Some readers are going to wonder how rock n’ roll music, in specific the two samples included in this interview from their YouTube performance, can command so august a label, let alone definition as Sacred Music? Is not Sacred Music something sung in Church, especially during Worship?
In my experience and research the boundary between secular music and sacred music is very fluid. So that music is constantly shifting back and forth. Sacred music may cross over and share with those who are not religious. Music that is not religious can serve as the ground for religious experience.



I think for lots of Christians from the Baby Boom and afterwards, they don’t see any contradiction between popular music styles and sacred music. They’ve gotten the idea that rock n roll can be sacrilized. So they refuse to put up with old fashioned. I’ve written a whole book about the ways in which American evangelical Christians warmed up to and essentially claimed popular music for their Churches during the 1970s. The book is titled, “No Sympathy for the Devil,” and is available through University of North Carolina Press. It is also available on Amazon.com, of course. There is a Facebook page for the book that has a lot of things I’ve added, reviews, and interviews. The link to the Facebook page is here.
I argue that, in the book, that Christian pop music played an unexpected role in American politics by keeping Baby Boom Christians in evangelical Churches where they were often imprinted with conservative political ideas. That’s one spinoff of the argument. I think the Christian pop music is here to stay. But the particular styles of popular music are going to evolve. What’s popular now among young Christians, won’t be popular in a decade.
A current star of Christian Pop music is: Amy Grant of, “Jars of Clay.” [One set of lyrics as from their song, “Be Thou Our Vision,”
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art Thou my best thought by day or by night Waking or sleeping Thy presence my light Be thou my wisdom and Thou my true word I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord Thou my great Father, I , Thy true son Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one Riches I heed not nor man's empty praise Thou mine inheritance now and always Thou and thou only first in my heart High King of heaven my treasure Thou are High King of heaven my victory won May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Sun Heart of my own heart whatever befall Still be my vision O Ruler of all

The lyrics for, “I need thee Every Hour,” are here.]



Peter Menkin: As a teacher of Sacred Music as a history subject at Michigan State University, you are making Sacred Music and history a broad subject for your students. judging by this quote from the page about you at MSU: I look forward to teaching Religious Studies classes focusing on music as lived religion both in North America and globally, and the politics of religion.
During the past spring and summer I created and taught two new courses for Religious Studies. The first was a new version of Myth, Self, and Religion; to check out a wide-ranging website on myth and religion created collaboratively by students in the class, go to http://rel205.wikispaces.com. The second was a brand new course, The Sound of World Religions, in which we explored the interplay between music, chant, and spirituality in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and indigenous religions.
Please offer us a taste of this area of teaching about Religious Studies and how the reader who is a fan of popular Christian music will find some grounding and understanding of where the music springs, and how it feeds into the popular religious culture of Christians?
One device I use is a major writing assignment as self-reflective essay where they write about and talk about their experience in a religious community or a music community. This gets a student to connect ordinary experiences they may have grown up with as course themes. I start with something they know very well, and push them to connect to the course work.
I frequently have students who have grown up in Churches and then drifted away for various reasons and then reconnected with a religion, sometimes the same one, sometimes a different religion when they became young adults. I’ve had students who have been musicians in praise bands in Churches. Sometimes African American Churches, sometimes predominately white. Some of my students are not raised in a religion but are very devoted to musical groups; they’re organizations for whom music serves as an equivalent to Church.
I’ve got a woman in my class who is passionate about horses, and horse shows and competitions. She wrote a paper about the equestrian community at Michigan State. How it serves as a quasi-religious community, and how certain songs are significant part of this very close knit community.
What I do in the classroom, I make the students listen to many examples of religious music and I ask them to write about what they are hearing as clearly and descriptively as they can. So they begin to develop better skills for analyzing sacred sound.


Peter Menkin: As we come to the end of our conversation, I want to thank you for your time and the opportunity to make your acquaintance. At this time, tell us if there is something you would like to add or mention that may have been missed in the interview questions.
I don’t have a publisher, but I am excited about what I am going to discover in writing the new book. I am hoping to be surprised by Psalm 137. It is only in the process of writing a book that I am able to figure out what it is that is so compelling about that particular text. I hope to get something written by next summer.
To me it’s interesting to me how I got interested in sacred music in the first place. I was teaching in Japan about 15 years ago and was asked to create a course about American culture—for Japanese students. Between understanding American religion and American music I thought they would get an idea of what makes Americans tick. I taught courses on the subject and then realized I had a good book there.

NOTES

Roland Hayes sings “Go Down, Moses.” 1922
http://youtu.be/b8NGQGIogys

Uploaded by EdmundStAustell on Mar 15, 2010
Roland Hayes (1887-1977) was born in Curryville, Georgia, the son of former slaves. He studied singing at Fisk University in Nashville and began performing publicly in 1911. He studied further in Boston and then London. His early career was in Europe, and when he returned to the United States, in 1923, he was able to come under professional management, and undertook an extensive concert tour that gained him both fame and significant income. Here is the stirring “Go Down, Moses,” recorded in 1922.

For a final look: one area of Yale Institute of Sacred Music study



This article originally appeared Church of England Newspaper, London. To reach the writer, Peter Menkin: pmenkin@att.net

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Interview: Poet/Translator Peter Cole talks about Kabbalah and his Jewish poetry


American poet/translator Peter Cole

In another of the ongoing series with Anglican and Christian poets this religion writer chose to interview Jewish poet and translator Peter Cole. One of his agents suggested a Jewish poet, though Ofer Ziv of Blue Flower Arts knew the series was made up of Christians and Anglicans.


The mystic, poet, secular Jewish married man of letters who is a scholar is reticent to use the word “God” in an interview, and even reticent to admit to a belief in the Almighty. Yet this religious and spiritual scholar and poet has a recent book of translations of works from the Kabbalah in the book titled The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition.
This ancient discipline of understanding the Almighty in the Jewish tradition is a mystical and mysterious exercise in religious practice that continues into our own day–this 21st Century. If one asks, Where are we going, even in the Christian community, it does good to look towards the mystics be they Christian or Jew. This eminent and if not celebrated translator Peter Cole fits the bill of man who finds the kind of no God experience of mystery in the Kabbalah work. That is, if this Religion Writer may takes some liberties based on visiting the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco where a room of men and women heard him speak of Kabbalah, read from his new book, and talk of matters poetic and scholarly in the Jewish tradition. Peter Cole was on tour in March, and as a guest in the house of the Jewish Community, that though not Temple, is certainly a specific place of community life and interest; Peter Cole makes a noteworthy presentation and appearance, even so far as to engage the audience with his translations and his own poetry. Here are two samples of his translation work from the new book of Kabbalah writings:

THE POETRY OF KABBALAH
The stakes couldn’t be higher: extraction of
light from the container of sound; ascent to the
Throne of God and direct vision of His Glory;
the eradication of coarseness and the forces of
darkness; a path to redemption, sometimes
through sin; the achievement of erotic union
on high — which is to say, the sacred marriage
of feminine and masculine aspects within the
Deity. “Great is the power of the poem recited
for the sake of heaven,” writes one late-
seventeenth-century North African poet. “It
unites all the [spiritual] qualities
like a sacrificial offering, aligns the [heavenly]
channels, and gives rise to effulgence in all
worlds — above and below.”

The poet explains: In this Kabbalistic context, poems not only depict a mystical process, they produce it . . . In other words, the hymns of the Jewish mystical tradition demonstrate how song — almost magically, and at times with actual magic — can conduct and preserve transformative knowledge, even for those who don’t quite know what they know. Moreover, they show how a vision of the manifold linkage of all things and all degrees of thought and feeling might be registered in the cadence and weave of a line of verse, a series of wedded sounds in the air.

T O R I S E O N H I G H
To rise on high
and descend below,
to ride the chariot’s wheels
and explore in the world,
to wander on earth
and contemplate splendor,
to bask in the blessing
of the Crown
and sound Glory,
to utter praises
and link letters, to utter names
and behold what is
above and below,
to know the meaning
of the living
and see the vision
of the dead.
To ford rivers of fire
and know lightning.
—from The Poetry of Kabbalah



Poem by the poet:

IMPROVISATION ON LINES BY ISAAC THE BLIND
Only by sucking, not by knowing,
can the subtle essence be conveyed—
sap of the word and the world’s flowing

that raises the scent of the almond blossoming,
and yellows the bulbul in the olive’s jade.
Only by sucking, not by knowing.

The grass and oxalis by the pines growing
are luminous in us—petal and blade—
as sap of the word and the world’s flowing;

a flicker rising from embers glowing;
light trapped in the tree’s sweet braid
of what it was sucking. Not by knowing

is the amber honey of persimmon drawn in.
An anemone piercing the clover persuades me—
sap of the word and the world is flowing.

across separation, through wisdom’s bestowing,
and in that persuasion choices are made:
But only by sucking, not by knowing
that sap of the word through the world is flowing.
—from Things on Which I’ve Stumbled


Translation by the poet:
TO THE SOUL by Avraham Ibn Ezra, 1092
Sent down from a luminous fountain of life,
drawn from a sacred place, and pure,
created as one, though not with form,
and greater by far than honor or wisdom—
why were you ushered into the world
and then in the dark of the body imprisoned?
At first its sleep seems sweet to you,
but in the end it’s hard and bitter.
Put the pleasures of Time behind you,
unless in exile you’d always wander.
Consider your glory, for this is your Good,
to serve the living God in awe:
take counsel while living within this world—
and be bound in the one-to-come with the Lord.
—from The Dream of the Poem, trans. Peter Cole





Perhaps you has reader are not familiar with the name Peter Cole, or even Madonna, a Hollywood figure who studies Kabbalah as well. She is a part of the ever popular movement towards that mystery of ancient Judaism. But she is a singer, and like other Hollywood types we don’t take their study seriously, unless we are fans. Peter Cole is taken seriously in the Jewish community and among academics and religious types.

If you as reader have heard of this list of notable organizations, This religion writer thinks you will agree they are impressive. These are the titles and awards held and worn almost like an unseen necklace by poet/translator Peter Cole.

Winner of the 2010 TLS Risa Domb/Porjes Translation Prize, Jewish Book Council Winner of the 2007 R. R. Hawkins Award, Association of American Publishers Winner of the 2007 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Humanities, Association of American Publishers Winner of the 2007 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Literature, Language, and Linguistics, Association of American Publishers Winner of the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in Poetry Finalist for the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Culture Peter Cole is the recipient of a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship Peter Cole is a winner of a 2010 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

They are ones Princeton University Press notes. Here is another “award.”

As one scholar and poet says of this seeker of God, this man involved with the ineffable, adding another acclamation to the poet’s list: “Peter Cole is a true maker. His extraordinary learning is deep and personal, and his poems, like his translations, are powered by a large spiritual quest to link and light the world with words. He stands with amazement before great mysteries.” —Edward Hirsch



His most recent work that brought him on the tour, which came down to local communities in the Jewish world USA, even to the County Community Center in my own area, Marin County. The Poetry Foundation: The work is Peter Cole’s The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition … from Yale University Press. It is a handsome hardback, Yes.
In this literary study of religion, for Peter Cole is an intellectual and well educated man, too, When attending his talk at Jewish Community Center of San Francisco this religion writer kept wondering as others have, do the mystics, those who study mystics and in particular Kabbalah, those who are poets, too, and of course the ones seeking Union with God—do not they tell us something of the way the Church needs to go. In a recent conversation over coffee with the Rector of the Episcopal parish I attend located north of San Francisco, the Rector spoke about having to know about his flock, their spiritual need, and even the Church’s spiritual needs as well. In the coffee shop Peets we talked of the poet and what vision or understanding is offered in such work and of course in such thought.
In the New Directions published work, the poet again creates a gem for those interested in the mystery of God, and in the religious poetry of history, especially those of the Jewish faith, the recent work, Things on Which I’ve Stumbled, published 2008 is the book from which earlier examples found in this article of his poetry are posted. This man Peter Cole has a body of work. The recent book is listed this way:

The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish TraditionTranslated and Annotated by Peter ColeYale University Press, April 2012Co-edited and with an afterword by Aminadav Dykman





In an interview in Bomb magazine with Ben Lerner, the poet says:
Ben Lerner I’m interested in how your work as translator and as poet relate, how one practice influences the other. How does translating from different epochs and geographies—the Hebrew Golden Age in Muslim Spain, the contemporary Middle East—shape your sense of the present in which your own composition takes place?
Peter Cole They relate like the closest relations—usually loving, sometimes hating, often hovering, and occasionally smothering. Ultimately they mean, quite literally, the world to one another. I began translating as a poet to get inside other poetries that appealed to me and also to bring them back to friends. One thing led to another: the modern to the medieval, the American to the Middle Eastern and Andalusian, which in turn led back to the American (my own). Now, in a sense, it’s a little like Chuangtzu’s predicament, the Chinese philosopher who was so deeply released into his dream of being a butterfly that when he woke he didn’t know if he was Chuang-tzu who had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who was dreaming he was Chuangtzu. I used to want to separate the poet from the translator in me, but that’s no longer possible, nor is it desirable. On the contrary.

This excerpt, “Peter Cole by Ben Lerner,” was originally commissioned by, edited, and published in BOMB Magazine, Issue 105, Fall 2008, pp. 40-7. © Bomb Magazine, New Art Publications




The Aspen Writers Foundation presents “Translating the Middle East” with Peter Cole and Rob Spillman

Aspen Summer Words 2011


Coexistence: A Lost and Almost Found Poem

By Peter ColePeter Cole

And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel, with a loud voice: —Deuteronomy 27:14
Over the border the barrier winds,
devouring orchards of various kinds.
Cursed be he that taketh away
the landmark of his neighbor.
And all the people shall say, Amen.
The road was blocked in a battle of wills—
as the lame and sightless trudged through the hills.
Cursed be he that maketh the blind
to go astray in the way.
And all the people shall say, Amen.
The army has nearly written a poem:
You’ll now need a permit just to stay home.
Cursed be he that perverteth the justice
due to the stranger (in Scripture).
And all the people shall say, Amen.
Taken away—in the dead of night—
by the secret policeman, who might be a Levite.
Cursed be he that turneth to smite
his neighbor in secret murder.
And all the people shall say, Amen—
as peace is sought through depredation,
living together in separation.
Cursed be he that confirmeth not
the words of this law—to do them.
And all the people shall say, Amen.

Source: Poetry (June 2008).



In the work, The Dream of the Poem translator Peter Cole also writes of Arabic poetry. For in the era of research on Jewish poetry, there is also the Arabic. In his presentation that this writer attended in San Francisco, it is noteworthy that he says Jews lived in the Middle East. So they were greatly influenced by that geographic proximity, and the translator did in the work The Dream of the Work: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain reflect the poetry of the era in its historic perspective, as is done in this work mentioned published by Princeton University Press. Jews also lived in Spain, and again they reflect the poetry of the era in its historic perspective. Princeton says this of the poet and the book in their promotion text:
Hebrew culture experienced a renewal in medieval Spain that produced what is arguably the most powerful body of Jewish poetry written since the Bible. Fusing elements of East and West, Arabic and Hebrew, and the particular and the universal, this verse embodies an extraordinary sensuality and intense faith that transcend the limits of language, place, and time.
Peter Cole’s translations reveal this remarkable poetic world to English readers in all of its richness, humor, grace, gravity, and wisdom. The Dream of the Poem traces the arc of the entire period, presenting some four hundred poems by fifty-four poets, and including a panoramic historical introduction, short biographies of each poet, and extensive notes. (The original Hebrew texts are available on the Princeton University Press Web site.) By far the most potent and comprehensive gathering of medieval Hebrew poems ever assembled in English, Cole’s anthology builds on what poet and translator Richard Howard has described as “the finest labor of poetic translation that I have seen in many years” and “an entire revelation: a body of lyric and didactic verse so intense, so intelligent, and so vivid that it appears to identify a whole dimension of historical consciousness previously unavailable to us.” The Dream of the Poem is, Howard says, “a crowning achievement.”



INTERVIEW WITH PETER COLE BY RELIGION WRITER, PETER MENKIN

Peter Cole wrote answers to questions from his home in New Haven, Connecticut:



Poet/translator

PM: Why as a secular Jew do you write Jewish poetry?

PC: I’m not sure I can explain that, except to say that my poetry and my Jewishness come from what feels like the same, deep-seated place in me. Perhaps they’re adjacent, or merely aligned. In any case, while I by no means write an exclusively Jewish poetry, much of the poetry that I do write has an informed notion of Jewishness at its heart.



As a scholar interested in things holy, do you find your faith and understanding of God even made more deep and real? This not only in your work of poetry, but in your translation work–specifically your recent book, The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition.
I wouldn’t call myself a scholar. I’m a poet who is drawn to a certain kind of scholarship, or who, at any rate is not put off by it. And that involvement with it certainly intensifies and enriches my engagement with the world as a Jew.
The many years of work on this book have of course deepened my understanding of the world of Kabbalah and my faith in the work of words, but not my faith in the word “God.”
Do you find yourself a peace person as Jew in Jerusalem?
Absolutely.
Do you have children?
No.
In what manner are you a part of the Jewish Community if not a practicing Jew with membership in a Temple?
Jews are “part of the Jewish Community,” whether or not they observe the mitzvot, or commandments, or belong to a synagogue or Temple. Some are active in that community, some are passive. For some, that community provides the core of their identity; others define themselves against that community. Being Jewish has as much or more to do with how one is raised (and behaves) as with what one says one believes.
I live a deeply Jewish life, and Judaism is very much at the center of my concerns as a human being and as a poet and translator. I’m fluent in Hebrew and live a large part of my life in the language. I’ve also worked extensively with a wide range of Hebrew literature, as well as with Arabic literature. I’m a citizen of Israel (and of the U.S.), and have been a resident of Jerusalem for thirty years. I live the rhythms of the Jewish week and the Jewish year.
Why did you move to Jerusalem and then return to USA.
I moved to Jerusalem initially to study Hebrew, fell in love with the language and the city, and decided to stay. I still live there, but my wife and I also spend part of the year in the US. By and large, we now divide our time evenly: January through June in New Haven and July through December in Jerusalem.

Of the Hebrew poets and writers in this and the last century, who comes to mind as a favorite and why?
Avraham Ben Yitzhak was a legendary early 20th-century Hebrew poet whose entire body of work consists of 11 poems, two of them masterpieces, and the others sublime in their various ways. I’ve always felt very close to his poetry. I translated his Collected Poems, Avraham Ben Yitzhak (Ibis Editions, 2003).I also hold the work of the contemporary Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai in very high regard and have translated a good deal of it, most recently in War & Love, Love & War: New and Selected Poems, Aharon Shabtai (New Direction, 2010).
In the Bible, what book or section speaks to you as a poet and translator?
I seem to be drawn, steadily, to the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus, the parts of Leviticus treating sacrifice, and the parts of the Book of Exodus treating the construction of the sanctuary.
I am looking for a quote from you of a Biblical kind, even short reiteration of the story part that sticks out in your mind.
“Choose life.”

Have you taught University?
Yes, I’ve taught at Middlebury College, Wesleyan University, and Yale University. I’ll be teaching at Yale again next spring.
And if so, where and what kind of student do you like?
I like all sorts of students, so long as they’re curious and willing to work hard.
Do you want to say something about any poets or poetry of the spiritual or religious kind in general?
Generally speaking, I try not to use the word “spiritual” or “religious” in relation to poetry unless they have historical referents to a specific poetry, genre, or cultural context.
I see by the notes on your wife, a literary woman, that yours is a kind of marriage some will call, literary. Do you find your marriage that way?
No. Adina and I do what we love, and it’s been our great fortune that what each of us loves overlaps with what the other does. Our lives are “literary,” in that literature is at their core. But so are other things.
Do you find yourself engaged in the world and lives of those you bring alive in translation and poetry?
It seems that way from the radio interview you did with your wife about your recent book, Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza: http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2011/05/16/sacred-trash-a-treasure-trove-of-the-cairo-geniza/ .

Deeply—otherwise, why bother? Both poetry and translation should extend one’s sense of self and world. The way out is often the way in, and the reverse, fortunately, is also true.

ADDENDUM

And So the Skin . . .


And So the Skin . . .


By Peter ColePeter Cole

And so their pounded hearts
were worn—
like a badge
or talisman,
that canceled
almost all their blindness—
creation’s linkage depending
on a drive itself
derived from a kind of kindness
or desperation, the sense that one’s
inadequate,
at any rate

the space for time—
water has it, flowing
(even from a faucet . . .)
and here the black swan glides across it—
as the sunlight’s suddenly on my back,
and now the skin along it’s warmer,
Lord,
which lets me walk by the river . . .

Source: Poetry (June 2008).