Dear Friends: Recently I have fallen into a modest exercise routine which involves racking up steps on my pedometer most mornings while listening to classical music; truth be told, as an avid indoorsman, I am usually marching around in my basement.
Once I’ve selected a particular composer, I listen to his (not too many women, unfortunately) symphonies sequentially; often I try to detect a development in style as the composer matured. Most composers last me about a week, give or take (think Beethoven’s 9 symphonies), and no, I did not go through all 104 Haydn symphonies!
About two weeks ago, I made my way to Antonin Dvorak, the great 19th century Czech composer. (Seeking Jewish connections, I learned that Dvorak was not Jewish, but he was a major influence on Erwin Schuloff whose compositional career was extinguished when he was deported to the Wülzburg prison where he died in 1942).
Methodically I began with Dvorak Symphony #1 which he composed at age 24 and which I find delightful and exhilarating. As the days progressed, however, I found myself dreading day 9 and the famous work, From the New World, commissioned and written by Dvorak during his extended American visit in his mid-50s. In my mind’s ear leading up to number 9, this symphony was overblown and overplayed, and I was sure I’d be bored.
Surprisingly, however, this piece which I’ve probably heard dozens if not hundreds of times, sounded refreshingly wonderful when the ominous day arrived. And herein lies a lesson, perhaps. I’m not the same person I was when I last listened to this composition, and maybe this is how we can approach situations, books, and even people with whom we’ve become disenchanted.
Think, for example, of our annual cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses, one portion a week beginning with Simchat Torah and progressing until the following Simchat Torah when we approach Genesis Chapter 1 yet again. The text remains the same year after year, but each time we read the appropriate verses, we read them with new insights and ideas because we’ve changed in the intervening time. Each of our life experiences adds a dimension to our understanding of the world around us.
Of the Torah, the first century CE sage known as Ben Bag Bag (probably a pseudonym to hide the fact that he’d converted to Judaism against Roman law) says “turn it and turn it again, for all is in it” (Pirke Avot 5:22). There’s always something new to learn because we’re renewed each day, something for which we should always be grateful.
This past quarter, I had the honor to officiate at a wedding, multiple conversion ceremonies, and a Bat Mitzvah; to deliver a sermon on antisemitism at several local churches; to participate as part of a cohort of Jewish leaders on Combating Antisemitism through the Spertus Institute in Chicago; to deliver two talks about Jewish American Nobel Physics Prize Winners; to serve on a panel of rabbis at the Albuquerque JCC on the topic of the High Holidays; to teach a pair of classes at the Los Alamos Jewish Center on the liturgy of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur; to lead services for the Thailand Progressive Jewish Community in Bangkok; and to lead Shabbat services both at home in Los Alamos, and in Santa Fe at HaMakom. With each of these activities, there was the potential to act in autopilot mode, yet I am energized whenever I expand my Jewish experiences, and I always learn something in the process.
Ben Bag Bag speaks of “Torah,” he is talking of Torah in its broadest sense – we should turn it and turn it again, for indeed, all is in it.
B’shalom, Rabbi Jack
Reading list for the quarter
Below is my reading list from the past quarter, with an asterisk denoting a particularly good selection.
Bruno Schulz: An Artist. A Murder. And the Hijacking of History* – Benjamin Balint
Einstein: A Stage Portrait – Willard Simms
Guide to Yiddish Short Stories – Bennett Muraskin
The Quiet City: A Play in Two Acts – Irwin Shaw
Antisemitism: Here and Now – Deborah Lipstadt
Three Prose Works – Else Lasker-Schuler; tr. James Conway
The Fran Lebowitz Reader* – Fran Lebowitz
Loss of Memory is Only Temporary – Johanna Kaplan
Limassol – Yishai Sarid; tr. Barbara Harshav
Inheritance (Yerushe) – Peretz Markish; tr. Mary Schulman
Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair* – Maurice Samuels
Indignation – Philip Roth
Weights and Measures* – Joseph Roth; tr. David Le Vay
