I was really struggling to find a way to use this blog constructively, beyond the shameless self-promotion of my literary work and music. What could I uniquely bring to the oversaturated kingdom of blogdom? What do I have to offer that no one else does before my own individuality, a value which truly seems to be stressed in Western and perhaps all modern culture.

Finally, I decided on what I would bring to the world and format of blog-writing: an overview than superficial conceptual analysis of texts that I am reading and learning in a given week. Though I am sure that hardly anyone is or will be reading this blog, I can use it as a source reaction journal simultaneously updating the blog with my recent publications and thoughts on music.

With that being said, I want to begin this blog with a quick d’var Torah, or overview of this week’s Torah (Bible) passage. This week, we read about Matan Torah, B’nei Israel receiving the entire Torah from G-d at Mount Sinai. We also read about Yitro (Jehtro), the father-in-law of Moshe Rabbenu (Moses). As a convert to Judaism, Yitro has always been of great interest to me. The Sages, on them Shalom, tell us that Yitro was a convert. But he was a seeker, perhaps unlike Ruth— the prototypical convert— who joins Naomi and the Jewish people ostensibly more out of desperation then a desire to serve HaShem.

Yitro was a Medianite priest (Kohan mediani) who nevertheless is overwhelmed upon learning of the experience of the Jews at Mount Sinai. Was he there along with them or not? The Sages tells us that all who souls were, are, or ever would be Jewish were at Sinai, but the Meforshim (commentators) puzzle over whether Yitro was there. They tell us that the etymology of the name Yitro is from Yeter, meaning “to add.” Yitro’s presence “adds to” the Torah and the experience of the original Jews of Sinai. Moshe says upon marrying Zipporah that he hopes to, and forgive me for paraphrasing Torah, “sit by Yitro,” perhaps to benefit from his spiritual seeking.

Perhaps all Jews and people should strive to see all things , life, theology and really everything as a wholly new experience at all times, as Yitro does. Perhaps it is not that he adds to the Torah anything but fresh eyes, thus allowing him to advise Moshe from his own opinion to set up law courts so as not to be overwhelmed by the inquiries and demands for guidance from the people.

At Sinai, the Midrash tells us that HaShem held the mountain over the heads of the people and threatened them; either the Jews accept the Torah or that there would be their grave. My teacher, Rav Uri Topolosky once said that this was not a threat but the mountain acted as a marriage canopy, surrounding the people Israel as they “married” G-d through the b’rit (covenant). Maybe each individual must ratify this kiddushin to make it real through a commitment to mitzvoth, than an understanding of what that entails.


N.B. Much of my thoughts herein were influenced by drashot by R. Alex Israel of Pardes and their wonderful podcast series.

Universal Aesthetics

What is it that makes a great artist? Is it innovation or perspiration? Is it the ability to adhere to and bring about universal forms or is it instead the unique vision of a form that seemingly was yet to be conceived? To answer these questions in brief--yes.

In listening to a lecture by the great Israeli, Chabad Kabbalist, Rabbi Ginsburg, I came to hear the scriptural validation from the Jewish tradition that I needed. Rav Ginsburg, Shlit'a, tells us that the inspired, gifted artist commands a level just below a prophet but above a judge. That is because an artist is one of the few who is able to synthesize the wisdom (HOKHMAH) of the masculine cognitive side of experience and the feminine (NAVU'A) or the intuitive imaginative side. Both sides are essential and it is the duty of the artist to assimilate them as did Betzalel in fashioning the Tabernacle. I found this to be a lovely thought that I felt obligated to share.

Religion, Nihilism and an Old Poem that Just Got Published

I consider myself a deeply religious person. I pray three times daily, only eat what I consider to be allowed by G-d, and my Shabbes observance has grown to new and ever strict levels. Judaism and the performance of divine demands has become central to my life, even informing my views on love and the reasons and ways in which I create art; however, I was not always this religous person. My teenage years were riddled with the pain of not being able to "fit in," as well as intense dissatisfaction with American culture. This dissatisfaction manifested itself in the near deification of music, which I to this day will contend saved my life.

Mastering rock guitar (I'm usually quite humble but I am by most opinions a monster guitarist) was the only thing that saved me from a sense of nihilism that I now view as having been based more in love of G-d and a desire for people to live by the highest of ethical standards than anything else. Through guitar I was able to discover myself and conversely the silence within myself that is the same silence within us all. In Hebrew, the word for soul is the same as the word for breath, "neshama." Music allowed me to breathe and understand what breath truly is.

I had been an absurdist because people did not act in the way in which I felt that religion mandated we should. I was an absurdist because every human action, when done without awareness of some final end cause (not necessarily a practical one), seemed ridiculous and absurd. Also, as a prep school graduate, I was so disgruntled by ubiquitous materialism that I rejected all aspects of it.

Later as documented in the song "The Forces that Be" from my debut album Ink and Sound, I attempted to fit this mold, to be someone that I disliked and am not, to play a game in order to do something besides "not playing at all."

I am sometimes criticized for having forgotten about my punk rock ideals because my willingness to obey rabbinic laws and customs (minhagim). However, it must be noted, that I find many of the desires and the modes of living in our secular, materialistic society to be upsetting. That is not to say that I dislike the secular world. I am not Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) because there are many aspects of the modern world, such as education, arts and culture, film, that are central in my life. But the traditional American attitude that all things that are not pragmatic are unnecessary is a disgusting one and must be rejected because teleogical concerns should always trump utilitarian ones. Although science does it part, many of the mysteries of life cannot and will not be explained in our time and it is those mysteries that I have embraced because they feel so much more real than much of what our society clings to.

Anyway, that was a rather longish introduction to a new poem that I have published at Bibliophiles, a new print and digital zine based in Massachusetts. I wrote this poem nearly seven years ago when I had all but rejected my punk rock lifestyle and was in the midst of playing the social game as it were. I was miserably unhappy, frequently thought of suicide, and felt I had betrayed some sort of ideal that was higher than myself.

I had been sitting on a park bench in Harvard Sq. a few days after my 18th birthday and was debating getting a tattoo (this was in my pre-Jewish days). All of a sudden, a young teenage girl started talking to me about Salinger, Hesse, and indie rock. I forget what I had been reading at the time, but it was neither of these holy authors. Anyway, she shook me up. It almost reminded me of that Borges poem where he meets himself as a young man on a bench by the Charles River. She was me from three years before, complete with a gang of unkempt but cute punkish indie rockers. It was then that I realized either how far I had come as a citizen or how low I had stooped as a human being from who I may have been. Please read it and give me feedback. Again, it's an old poem:

http://thebibliofiles.weebly.com/virtual-zine.html

To close, a very dear friend of mine seems to have disappeared. More than anyone else, she epitomized the punk delusion and anarchist ideals of my youth and she was one of my best friends. I was told by a girl I used to love that this girl another one I used to love in a different way ran away to join the circus. Laura Carrig, if you are reading this, I dedicate this blog to you.

Uptown Salon in Harlem, Please Come! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=61836517728&ref=mf

My wife, Asia, and I will be hosting a new artistic gathering in Harlem called the Uptown Salon-http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=61836517728&ref=mf

The concept is to draw artists to come and present their work in a venue conducive to aesthetic inquiry and discussion of the artistic process. The goal is to foster an appreciation of art and build a creative community in Harlem, with a nod to the Harlem Renaissance and the late 19th and early 20th century Parisian artistic salons. I hope you will be able to make it as well.

Here's the full blurb:

Happily, last month was a great success and we hope that it will continue. We will be holding this month's salon once again in our Harlem home.

We are looking for other performers and visual artists of all genres to do 10-15-minute
presentations. This could include singing a song, displaying and presenting a painting, reading and discussing a poem, or simply performing a monologue.

This event is FREE but because our apartment isn't terribly big (understatement), we only have room for the first thirty people who RSVP to come this month. This is not including seven to ten performers. Next month we are still considering relocating to a nearby café. We will offer light refreshments but please BYOB.

By the way, you don't have to be an artist to attend, just someone willing to seriously consider another person's work with an open mind.

Hope to see you at the Uptown Salon!

--
During the early 20th century at Montparnasse and Montmartre, and later during the storied Harlem Renaissance, artists of all disciplines would congregate and share incipient ideas with one another and the greater public in an intellectual forum.

Though to our disappointment we will not be serving absinthe, we hope to create a similar forum in 21st-century Harlem, developing and sustaining an artistic community above Union Sq.

Artists need the input of others to help flesh out new projects and ideas, thus the Harlem Salon will be a forum for all artists-- visual, musical, literary and performance-based-- to come and present their works for the enjoyment and edification of their fellow artists, as well as the greater public.

This is a forum for discussing the experiences and catalysts of creative work in order to foster a greater appreciation of the arts and establish a creative community.

Battling Amalek

Somehow it must have escaped me that this is the most important time of the year to make t'shuvah (repentance). Sure I was painfully aware of the added blessings and word tags in my prayers during these aseret yamei t'shuvah, but I wasn't personally, spiritually aware of all of my shortcomings until receiving some terrible news this evening. A young lady, whom I barely knew but was an extended family friend, took her own life by jumping off of a building. She sang a song at our American wedding and we even had dinner with her about three weeks ago for my wife's birthday. Ostensibly at least, she had everything-- looks, a killer voice, youth, a new family as her mother just remarried-- but now she has nothing. Now she is nothing, but whatever we are in the first place--maybe only that primordial stuff, or dark matter.

Let's hope she has become whatever it is she was looking for when she decided to take her own life. And I only hope that there is a plan in this topsy-turvy world that I may trust more than is healthy for my own good. I often hear people say that life is nothing but chaos, amorphous and with no apparent order. Tonight, on the eve of the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom HaKippurim, I am the closest that I've ever been to buying in to such nihilism.