Soul movement
Recently I was on my Spotify account enjoying the cool feature that promotes you to set up “radio choices” based on artists that you like. Selecting my “Mordechai Ben David channel” (Ben David is a popular religious performer) I found myself listening to a recording of Reb Shlomo Carlebach singing with his daughter Neshama.
While the song was beautiful I found it ironic that the very first song that popped up on what I thought was a channel that would select performers with a more orthodox leaning is one sung by Neshama Carlebach, a singer that has recently made a very high profile switch to the reform movement which is at the opposite end of the Jewish “denominational” spectrum!
The lyrics of this particular song are from the 23rd psalm, a prayer that every American Jew that has attended a few funerals, can sadly recite from memory- “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death….”
It seems that her choice to record this song, which is one of her father’s most well-known compositions, as well as requesting her father to actually record it with her, was one way of dealing with the isolation she was starting to feel in the orthodox world in which she was raised.
Could it be that by singing this song with her father Neshama felt that she would be fine as long as he was right there beside her offering support?
“For though art with me?”
Perhaps, had her father still been alive to keep singing with her, Neshama might not have felt compelled to uproot herself from the mostly comfortable ground of her upbringing, and replant herself in less familiar soil, which is never an easy transition!
Her father harmonizing this song with her was a very public show of parental love even as Neshama herself was making some very untraditional choices.
As much as Neshama’s song pressed me to think about and try and understand her thoughts and perspective- I was happy to see that the next song Spotify chose to play was a song by my channel’s own artist! The song, entitled “Shiru Lamelech,” is from an album called Kumzitz, and was recorded live on a Jerusalem rooftop.
The lyrics of Ben David’s song, which are taken from the Shavuot holiday liturgy, include the lines,
“V’atah Banim shiru lamelech b’tiferet m’foar V’ashrei avadav hamashmi’im b’kol shivcho. וְעַתָּה בָּנִים שִׂירוּ לַמֶּלֶךְ בְּתִפְאֶרֶת מְפוֹאַר וְאַשְרי עֲבָדָיו הַמַשְמִיעִים בְּקוֹל שִׁבְחו,” “And now, children,sing to the King with a crown of adornment, and happy are those who make heard the sound of His praise.”
I could not help but think how appropriate it seems- that the opening sentence of the prayer, is a key to reaching the state of mind described in the second stanza.
If we raise our children with sounds of joy, then we empower them to achieve the level of those who are “happily singing his praise.”
The large question is- how to define the state of “happily singing his praise?” I would say this is best described as the state of being which allows one to be content with where they are in life.
Instead of feeling the constant need to seek “out there” to find a new and better way of being- one should be seek to be nurtured and nourished by what’s already “in there.”
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be constantly challenging ourselves to see how our lives can vibrate at a higher level, stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zones so that we remain open to ever deeper vistas of understanding of self. This type of stretching and searching results in a life constantly vibrating with passion and brimming with soulful joy. However, being connected to one’s core original truth is the safest way to explore, safe in the knowledge that at any time we can open the parachute of our personal ethos and land safely.
Sometimes, when we are trying to reinvent who we are in order to create a new and “better” self, we often end up discarding our best most authentic selves.
Pushing to find that contentment with life is difficult. I wish Neshama- Mazal, good luck,in her search for her new path. I know that whatever her “movement” and wherever she lands in life she will succeed as long as she continues to identify with the more important “movement” of her inner Neshama(soul). It is her bright Neshama-Soulfulness that will help her continue her family’s mission of spreading holiness through song. I know she feels that her father still sings with her above in Shomayim(heaven), as he continues to sing his holy tunes with us all.
Listening to the music of my people is the string I pull to open the parachute of my soul, always there to soften my fall, help me stand up again, and remind me that “the ground on which I stand is(has always been my)sacred ground”. Whether it’s Shlomo Carlebach OBM, his daughter Neshama, Mordechai Ben David, or Phish; one sure way to keep a joyful connectness flowing is to figure out ways to turn up the volume,and keep the music pumping!
Thank you Spotify! Thank you Sonos!
Yossi