The Light Lab Podcast Episode 3: To Evening the Evenings (Ma'ariv Aravim) with Alexander Nemser
7:49PM Nov 4, 2021
Speakers:
Eliana Light
Josh Warshawsky
Ellen Dreskin
Alexander Nemser
Chava Mirel
Keywords:
prayer
poetry
evening
people
melody
adonai
feel
happening
life
translation
speak
liturgy
word
hear
night
poem
paragraph
language
beautiful
world
Hello, welcome everyone to the light lab podcast, I'm Eliana light. So excited to be here today with Cantor Ellen Dreskin.
Hello, everybody! Good to be here.
And Rabbi Josh Warshawsky.
Hello!
And for the first time we have someone in our fourth chair slash fourth zoom box, Alexander Nemser, joining us all the way from Los Angeles. Hello, Alexander!
Good morning!
Good morning. So glad for you to be here. And so excited for us to talk to you and get to know you a little bit today. Can you tell us a little bit about where you're zooming in from give us a little intro on you?
Where I'm zooming as in where my being is coming from?
However you want to answer that question.
Sure. I'm poet, and a writer, performer and facilitator in Los Angeles. I'm also a meditation teacher in training. And I would say, I am a being recovering from always needing to be right.
Hmm. Beautiful. This is, I have to say, Alexander, just being in your presence makes me calmer. So I'm glad that you're in this incredible meditation Teaching Learning Program. But you kind of have that effect, at least on me of just slowing down, slowing down my nervous system, encouraging me to take a deep breath. So I'm so glad that you're here today.
Thank you.
And I have a question for all of us panelists here, which is what has been on your heart this week. And and just like our introduction, we can take this, however we want. W hat's been on your heart this week, Josh?
Oh, there's been a lot on my heart this week, Eliana. As we're recording this, I am getting ready to head to summer camp for the first time in two years. And I also just finished my last zoom teaching singing class of the year of I guess of the 15 months, that's really all I've been doing is zooming in and singing and connecting across screens and across miles. And so it feels like a real week of transition to be heading back to a place where I can be in the same space with people a place that I care very deeply about, Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, and getting to spend some time physically in the presence of other people singing in creating Jewish memories and experiences is something that I really, I am anticipating what it's going to be like to be back in that space again, and feeling very positive and excited about it. And and a little nervous, too.
So beautiful. So excited for you and all of those real people who you're going to get to sing with and be - with what a mahaya. As we say something that brings us back to life, what a mahaya. ln what's on your heart this week?
Well to pick up on that theme from Josh of transitions. Where I am sitting at my computer screen, there's a beaut- there's a window right in front of my eyes beyond my monitor. And I am very aware of the seasons and the weather changing outside my window. And what has been so interesting just this week, outside of the New York area is that the morning begins with a beautiful blue sky at about 70 degrees and a lovely breeze. And every afternoon this week, by about one o'clock, it is so dark and so stormy and so humid and so and just watching that happen outside my window, and the the extremes and the flow and the changes is reminded me of this time we're in as we record right now of things beginning to open up for the summer and people relating to I'm not used to this or that or the other to being out. So I'm kind of sitting with that and noticing my own transitional feelings and what are the changes that are going to be taking place over the next couple of months? And how is that really landing with me it's - I'm watching from the balcony and having a good time observing myself.
So beautiful. It's a time of changes liminal time. I know I use that word way too much but I really like it: Liminal Time. And I love the idea of watching it going on kind of being an observer. What does it mean to be curious? And to be able to hold all of this change within us? So beautiful. Alexander, what's on your heart this week?
Yeah, I've been thinking about people containing multitudes, in the sense that we contain so many inner parts, each of us many characters and voices and personalities. And they contradict often, there's the kind of attention to all of their wrangling. This is my experience, at least. And part of the richness I think of getting to know people and giving people - is kind of to allow that we should be surprised by the contradictions, not limit them to certain parts, but actually go towards a kind of spaciousness about, wow, the complexity, this kind of mysterious unruliness, and I was thinking, you know, I was, in my observation, there's a, there's some conditioning that you know, certain parts, get a seat at the table, certain parts kind of have to stand back and watch people eat at the table. And then other parts are more like in a dungeon in the sub basement. And actually, though, the work of being a conscious being is inviting everybody kind of an equitable place at that banquet, inside and outside and honoring the multitudes.
Yes. So beautiful. That idea of who, which parts of us get a seat. I think also, when these days where we're so focused on authenticity, what does it mean to allow people to be authentically all the parts of themselves? Even if they don't seem to the outside necessarily to be authentically the same person? Where does that line draw? Now, I feel that in myself a lot. I've been thinking about people too, but more of what does it mean to have community? And what does it mean to be a singular person in a world? I'm not sure that we're meant to live alone, in the same way that the American ideal of independence means I am a fully functioning human being, and I don't need anybody else ever. I think that's incredibly lonely and isolating and damaging. On the other hand, so many of our institutions, and the way that our world works is for that. Is for singular, individual people doing everything on their own.
I spent the last week visiting a friend, and it was so beautiful, being in the same room together and singing together, like talk about a mahaya, it was so incredible. But I also noticed what it was like being in a place with a family and with friends, and what felt like a community that I don't think I have, and what it would be like to try to build that or find that and make it a priority in my life, while at the same time not trying to wait and say, Well, my life will begin once I find other people. What does it mean to strike that balance between holding it and being it and doing it all within myself? And knowing that actually, as human beings, we can't really function that way, totally dependent of each other, that there's something that brings us all together. Including this podcast which has brought all of us together in the same room. And I'm so so grateful for that.
Last time, we were all together we explored the Yotzeir Or slash, Or Chadash paragraph before the shema in our morning service, all about light and newness and creation. And so we figured why not talk about the parallel paragraph in the evening service. Also before the Shema, also right after the Barchoo which hopefully we'll get I know we will We'll be able to dig into all of these other things in future episodes. But while the morning blessing was all about light, and newness and creation, the evening service one is also about light and creation, but less about newness. I'm going to read it in Hebrew. And I invite you if you're in a place where you can close your eyes to just listen. Even if you don't totally understand every word. I certainly don't. See how the words hit your ears. I'll use the- a traditional name vocalization for G?D in this episode, Adonai, and then I'll read a translation. And then I'm excited for us to talk about it.
I just actually want to stop for a minute and ask our panelists: what did you notice? It's very rare I find especially in places where we either sing aloud, or mumble to ourselves a prayer, to hear it being read out loud, slowly in Hebrew - is not something we do a lot. Is there anything any of you noticed or want to share?
One of the things that just popped up for me Eliana was the - that all of the verbs are present tense. So many times in our prayers, where we're in past tense or hoping for the future, and this one is going on right now every time we say it. And that's very precious to me.
Thank you.
I was also noticing a lot going on with the - with the verbs and also the the modifiers for the verbs, the intentionality and connections behind chochma and to tvunah. And we will talk about a little more of that later, when you get to the translations. But just thinking about the the reasoning behind the word choices, I think are important and how these words got to be where they were in that particular order.
Yeah, somebody wrote this. Right, this is something we talk about all the time that we have to remember with our traditional liturgy. Someone wrote this. The word choice is intentional. The rhythms, the repeating words, right, even if we don't understand we hear Yom Lila Yom Laila or Choshech Choshech or we hear these words being repeated. And that repetition is part of the theme of the piece of liturgy itself. So I'm going to read now a translation that I found on open Siddur credited to Shimon Menachem which I really appreciate.
We bless you our Eternal One Sovereign reality of the universe. You speak a word and evening comes. In wisdom you open the gates of the sky. In infinite understanding you establish the shifts of the seasons, the cycles of creation. With unfathomable desire, you give pattern to the stars, you are creating day and night, rolling away light to make way for darkness and darkness to make way for light. In this very moment, you are removing day and bringing night you are Adonai Tzevaot, you are a living G?D, our eternal point of reference. We bless you eternal source of blessings, who brings us our evenings.
When I was in college, I took a liturgy class with Professor Reuven Kimmelman. I don't know if anyone else here. I think we've learned Josh is making the yes me to sign because I think he did a sabbatical to Jake. Right. He took some time off and was at JTS when you were there. So I was at Brandeis, and I took this class with him. And it, it really changed - it changed my life! It's a corny thing to say about a class but it's true. It's one of the first times, really the first time that I learned liturgy as poetry, as things that people wrote that had intentionality behind them and learned about their structure and what they mean. And I I remember learning the story from him, though I've told it so many times, often to kids that it's probably very different than the way he spoke it in his very commanding formal voice. But you might have you heard those words of creation, and the stars in the sky. So how is it different than the morning? And why is it different? I'd like us to imagine a shepherd. Imagine that you're a shepherd, back in the ancient times. And you're waking up in the morning, and it's another day or herding sheep. That's really all you do. You live in the desert, it sand for miles and Sun for miles oy vavoy, I have to wake up again, I have to herd sheep again, every day is like every other day. No, the Siddur comes along and says, creation is renewed every day. There is so much beauty so much newness, there is infinite possibility. This is not a day just like any other. This can be whatever type of day you want. Creation is happening. Today can be new and different. And maybe that helps you.
And then your day goes on and you come to the evening and the sun begins to set. And you're in that time, as the sun is being - sinking lower in the sky. And perhaps Shepherd, you might start to feel a little nervous. A lot of scary things happen at night. Wolves can come and take your sheep, bandits might come and take your little knapsack full of coins, or whatever else you happen to have. It starts to get colder in the air, it begins to feel uncertain. And the Siddur comes, liturgy comes and says: Don't worry, day turns to night, night turns to day, the stars all have their order in the sky, there are things you can count on in the world. The world is going to keep going. And maybe that makes you feel a little better. There's a reason that one of those paragraphs is in the morning and one is at night. I'll never forget at least the profound impact that had on me that the liturgy was written by people to help people. To help us live, maybe even to help soothe our anxieties about being in this world. And I know that when I started taking that seriously, it definitely has helped me. And I'd love for each of us to share a little bit more about this so we can dig a little deeper. Cantor. Ellen, what do you have for us?
Well, what I am struck by is this again, as I mentioned earlier, I'm into this thing about transitions now. That Yotzeir Or the morning prayer seems to be, well, it's about light, or it's pretty clear. And for me, ma'ariv aravim, it's not quite about the day, and it's not quite about the night. But this aravim, this in between time that is neither day nor night, and that in the chatima say thank you for that, for those times that are that are in between. For the process of flow from one to the other. And since I would also love to share a translation, slash poem, poetic translation of the words, this one by a poet named Danny Segal, who has been around for years and years as it's a Tzedaka maven. And he also happens to be a wonderful poet. And this is his translation.
He says, praised Are you adonai author of time and space, who brings on evening with a word, opens Heaven's gates with wisdom, adjusts the ages, varies the seasons, and orders the orbits of a sky full of stars. You create each day and each night afresh, roll light in front of darkness and darkness in front of light. You do this so gently, that no moment is quite like the one which precedes it. Second by second you make day pass into night. And you alone know the boundary point dividing one from the other. Unifier of all beings, is your name. Timeless G?D, rule forever. Praised are you oh G?D who brings on the evening.
And so it's, again, it's not about for the evening, but for for the thing bringing on of it. And believe it or not it you know what I said earlier about verbs being in present tense in this prayer. It was very, very recently in my life, that a light bulb went off that so many of our chatimot, these baruch ata statements at the end of a paragraph of prayer are in present tense. And this one really struck me all of a sudden, it was a huge lightbulb above my head, or in my heart, that no matter when you say this, evening is happening somewhere. It sounds like second grade, but to me it was this like, this, this always, always, always end. And the word tamid, there's always-ness continually jumps out of the prayer, it's always evening somewhere. And that just fills me with joy for some reason. So those are my, that's my space on the prayer.
I love that so much! I love that so much. It's perpetually happening perpetually in motion, the changing, the movement. And I think especially in the beautiful translation you shared, is is meant to help us feel stable, even amongst all of that movement. What does it mean to feel stability within movement? So beautiful. Josh?
Yeah, I want to pick up on that on that exact same point. I first of all, I love both of those translations. And and what I was really struck by was the movement, and then in calling G?D, our eternal point of reference. That G?D is the grounding point in that movement, right G?D is where we where we plant ourselves, so that we can be with it, we can find a routine amidst all this movement amidst all this change amidst the things that are happening all over the place. And you know, both of those translations had that word rolling for goel, right, this just as always this continuous movement. And I was looking around when we when we said, we're going to talk about Ma'ariv Aravim, to find that with that, what that doubled verbage is all about. Right Ma'ariv Aravim, which I feel like it's like a bad but literal translation is like to evening the evenings. God who evenings the evenings, and that the double verbiage comes around a bunch in the Hebrew and I couldn't figure out a better way to translate an English or even a counterpart. But but it comes around with shamoah tishmau that we have in the paragraph of the Shema, that you shall surely listen - you shall really listen. When we have laws about capital punishment in the Torah, it's mot tamoot, it's read, surely that person shall die. And in Ma'ariv Aravim to evening, the evening, surely that evening will come. It's, it's a guarantee. And it's the sort of guarantee that that this is this evening is happening, but that it's continuous, right? Every single moment, there's, as we're moving towards the evening, there slightly less light than there was before. So whenever you say this, it's moving towards another point in that time, that's going to be different. Like like the translation that Ellen shared, every moment is gently changed from the moment that came before us even just with the amount of light that you see in the space. And so I was really struck by it - by that that line in the translation and thinking about what it means to plant ourselves amidst all of this movement and I think like you were saying Eliana, but that, that calm and finding a moment of, you know, things are happening, and I'm not sure where I can find control, but at least I know that there is sense to be made in the fact that time is gonna pass and the sun will come out again in the morning, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Beautiful tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I'm also thinking about the word arev. I'm looking I can't see it right now, but I'll include it in the show notes in the translation by Reb Zalman I don't know where it went Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi , I think he says: causes pleasant evenings because there's something about the word erev shares a root potentially, and I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts on this if you know about it with arev. Like ki kolech arev because your voice is pleasant, beautiful. That's from Song of Songs. So-So what does it mean for the coming of the evening, a time that might cause us stress and anxiety, to share a route with something lovely, and pleasant and beautiful, and calming. Whatever whatever arev might be? Or what does it mean for for a voice to have the quality of an evening? What does it mean to use that as an adjective? I don't know. Josh, do you have?
I just there's one thing that you may be thinking I was talking to recently with a few friends about the idea of a contronym - a word that means it's opposite, like the word cleave, right because you cleave to something really tightly but also cleave means to cut something away. So a word that means its opposite. And that when you were talking about erev being pleasant, but also erev being a scary time, it felt to me kind of like a contronym. Right. How can a word mean exactly it's opposite? But that's what but that root word meaning both of those things, felt like you know, they're in some ways there's both a comfort and also a little bit of scary, scariness, in the idea that it can it can be both of those. And I don't know if if we're making the choice or if if, if something is happening to us, how can we get in the mindset of feeling erev as pleasant, as opposed to feeling it as frightful?
Oh, can I jump on that one? I having a visual right now of power outages. And what is I find pleasant and comforting about erev is that - what if the way the day and night worked was light switch? What? How scary would it be if it were day, and then boom, it was night, and we didn't have that buffer, we didn't have that, that flow to ride on from one end to the other. So right now I'm feeling a great deal of gratitude for the flow that I can ride in my days and nights, the between times.
I love that. The between times the multitude speaking of the multitudes that we all carry within words, Alexander, the three of us have done a lot of talking, but I'd love to hear just where your mind and your heart is at after hearing all about this piece of liturgy.
Yeah, as I listen to the prayer, I get this sense of the yin and the yang, ceaselessly rolling and flowing into each other. And especially, you know, to me part of the wisdom in that Taoist symbol is that that in the midst of one swirling energy is contained the energy of its opposite is contained the kind of nascent up swelling of whatever will be overturning that energy. And, yeah, that the, there's the sense of mixture feels really alive to me, you know that I was recently on a meditation retreat for about a week in silence in a very secluded place. And part of that experience is that your attention becomes wonderfully clear. And it's almost like reality, seeing seems to move a little slower. And you can see in finer greens, what has always been passing in your experience, but you weren't really attentive enough to notice. And then the other piece about being on a meditation retreat, is you're not checking your phone, you're not on a computer, you're not reading books, you're not watching movies. So you're like dying to pay attention to something that could possibly entertain you and give you the kind of fix that our screen based world is constantly you you're almost in like entertainment withdrawal. And so it causes you to kind of pay attention to you know, what are actually the stories that are taking place in reality. And one of those stories is the stories of the day of daylight and evening. And I had a couple moments of becoming very curious about this extremely tender transition from day, to that golden hour of afternoon, to dusk to twilight, to the dark and witnessing it and what really, I felt the moment of maximum kind of poignancy, you know, this the real like, kind of emotional climax is the place where daylight and evening are ambiguous. Like it's a both there's a both and-ness around dusk, in the light of day, where almost depending on how you look at it, it's the day or the app or the evening, and there's something about that, you know, like with one foot in daylight and one foot in evening there's there's a real human human moment in there. I think you know, as as someone who is kind of still preciously, embodied and growing and alive and and also someone who, you know, hopefully not too soon, but like someone who's kind of on their way out just as a finite mortal being and the mixture, the bitter sweetness of that really stand there and take it in. There's a humility. And there is also I relate to what you've been talking about, which is like, there's a longing for that consciousness, that stability, that can witness all of this without fear. And with confidence. And with surrender, you know, there's almost like a larger container that is holding both the light and the dark. And it is that to which we surrender, and I think that suits the heart, to surrender to the larger container in which all the light is held.
So beautiful. Thank you so much for bringing bringing your own poetry and your own thoughts and ideas to this. Is this a paragraph that you've seen, or interacted with much before?
It's not I remember the phrase, evenings the evening, just for poetic pleasure. I remember that coming up. I used to have a kind of a hevruta, who was very well versed in the prayers. And we looked at the Siddur, a little bit, but I'm really a beginner. When it comes to the, the traditional liturgy. I have gone on a lifelong digression that is maybe leading me back these days?
Well, I bring it up just because you, you so beautifully stated that what's in what's in there is out here, in the sense that when we slow down enough to notice, the the drama of what's happening in the world, so much of it is is contained or reflected in our tradition.
It's already been so incredible to have you on the podcast with us, Alexander. We met, I guess, two years ago, already now, at a really day and a half, it was very short, long retreat, Jewish mindfulness educators retreat. And we, I think, found this spark in each other. And we've gotten to work together and have created some beautiful explorations of prayer. And I'm wondering, just in your own words, what has your prayer journey been? And again, you can take that question, however, however you want.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm grateful to reflect deeply on this subject. It has indeed been a journey. I think the origin of what I would today be able to speak about as a prayer life really comes from very early exposure to poetry in my family. My dad is a poet. And so in childhood there was a wonderful sense of life being filled with kind of rhyming, rhyming and singing, poetic play. And it's kind of a mystery, you know, why is that one child, deeply susceptible to something and not something else. But I, as early as I can remember, I had this feeling that like, this use of language, this kind of like extremely intentional, nuanced, sort of explosive discovery. Within language, I felt it was a sacred experience. I felt there was like some kind of, like, radical sort of intrusion on to the ordinariness of life that was coming alive through these verses. And my favorite poem when I was very young was Tyger Tyger Burning Bright by William Blake. I was obsessed with the rhythm of it, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it has this amazing kind of heart beat. And I actually still think there's a line in there that has kind of been the basis for all the spiritual exploration ever since especially thinking about G?D, and how we speak about G?D and imagine G?D which I feel kind of what brought Eliana and I together is this deep interest in what different images and ways of speaking about G?D can do to the prayer life of a prayerful person. And in Tyger Tyger Burning Bright, one of the lines he's speaking to the tiger, and also I had this illustrate we had like an illustrated poetry book and there was this image of the tiger that was incredible it was like gold and green it was like a tiger you would see in a dream, almost like illuminated manuscript or something. And he says, Did he who made the lamb make thee? is asks the tiger that and I I feel that he's asking, like how can all what a brain buster it is to contemplate the true vastness and polarities of the created world? Like, how could you make both the lamb and the tiger and what what does it tell you about the creator or the universe or the design of existence that it made these two beings that in a way could not be more radically opposite the lamb and the tiger. And I think there's that sense of humility and also radical truth, telling what I that's what I loved about poetry. And yeah, kind of flash forward might my life in my late 20s, I could say like, my life basically fell apart, certainly in relation to my expectations of what my life would look like and feel like and be. I was a very, over achieving oriented person. And for various reasons, which I now think of as blessings. Basically, my whole plan for my life was derailed. It involved a bicycle accident, and a breakup and career meltdown and various different elements. But at that time, one of the things that really spoke to me was the Psalms, and the sense of speaking out of the depths. Speaking from the Belly of the Beast, that was another thing that I was obsessed with that kind of strange, like prayer song thing that Jonah says, when he's inside the whale. And I really felt like this has so much in common with the human impulse for poetry, is to sing out from that, that place.
There's a certain clarity, I think that comes from despair, the the need to be what's happening in, in a soul, I feel that there's such a deep desire to, especially when where when we feel we're in trouble, to be able to just open the heart and soul and admit what is happening. It's such like a radically healing act. And, you know, I was thinking in a society, well, let me just say that the last piece of the journey is I had the sense of poetry, you know, and somehow the relationship with poetry and prayer, but I didn't have an understanding, I guess you could say, like, actually how to pray. I knew how to write poetry and to feel desperate in my heart. But it wasn't until I actually became involved as a member in 12 step recovery communities that I was finally among all these people and like their relationship with prayer, it's so wonderfully pragmatic. These are people who understand the high stakes that like life and death, activity and usefulness, and kind of like, hygienic maintenance of the soul that prayer offers. And there it's, it's such a wonderfully non judgmental tradition. And you're really just encouraged to like, you know, they say, turn your will in your life over to the care of G?D as you understood G?D. Everybody comes to their own conception. And I learned in that context how to actually have that intimate conversation of radical truth telling that I was longing to have on a daily basis. And I think one thing I would say about prayer, for me, when we live in a world or a culture that I think you could say that it is a shame based culture in some ways, as in a culture where looking good and not failing, not having vulnerabilities or deficiencies or, you know, human imperfections, that is a priority. And when you live in a culture like that, implicitly, the messaging is the truth about you, is your enemy. You have to hide it at all costs. Because to reveal it is social suicide to be, you know, kind of dis disconnected from the social fabric. Whereas I think, the implicit, beautiful healing message of prayer is, the truth is your most intimate companion, the truth is your closest friend, and how wonderful to cultivate a relationship with a presence outside yourself, in which you can share the truth, where you can say what's happening, you can say, Wow, this is not working. Or Wow, thank you so much. I see how far we've come. And I know that you see that, to be able to tell the truth in your own language, to deepen your intimacy with your very being to deepen your intimacy with presence with existence itself. And for me, I think it was the combination of that upwelling of magical language, from poetry, combined with that sense of a practical solution to a high stakes existence. That's how I would experience prayer today. And that is just an unfolding, not yet revealed.
Wow, it really sounds like all throughout your life, poetry and prayer have intersected and that's something that we speak a lot about on the podcast, and even in the work I'm doing with Ellen and Josh, about how prayer and poetry are come, like you said, from the same impulse. I think it was even you that said to me once that poetry is an attempt to put into words that which cannot be put into words. And I think prayer and G?D are the same. So I would love for you to share a piece of your poetry with us. And then share a little bit about what this piece means to you and why you decided to bring it today.
My pleasure. This is a poem called Voice of the future. You voice of the future. Honey hinged and fringed in simple skin. Who rake availability across my eyelids, baid listening down my spine, who dip my fire to rest. Trace receiving in my fingertips. Spired sound in simple skin: You are my lips To drink at faith's raw edge, and when my throat is lined in night unnameable as need, stitch up my singing in unbanded light. You, fullness, you unfinished wheel: stalk-green, dawn-blue and rooted at my tongue, You are the life- wrung suture of my lung. Flame-hummed repeater of our season, Star stitched sister of our thirst, Moon scratched mirror of our hearing, Sun-awed believer of our voice
Wow, thank you. I love hearing that read in your voice even after I was able to take a look at it and will include the text of that poem. In our show notes, I can certainly hear echoes of Ma'ariv Aravim in that, but I'd love for you to share a couple of words about the genesis of that poem and why you brought it in particular today to us.
Well, I was thinking on a podcast about poetry and prayer of that energy in my experience of language, always reaching to renew itself. And this is something I've, you know, find so beautiful about the workshops that we do, that once people are given a platform or a safe opportunity or container, to touch into the prayer of their heart, suddenly, you realize there are new prayers, new language, new expressions of that intimate connection with divinity that are upwelling, constantly, there upwelling in every being every new being this, this whole source of upwelling, language. And I was interested in the poem, speaking as a prayer of praise to that energy, of language renewing itself in each heart. Actually, the original Genesis of the poem, I lived in New York for a while, and I spent some of that time synagogue Safari, so to speak, I was going to all these different shuls and of every denomination from sort of, like alt-Hasidic to reconstruction, things in little things in people's apartments. And, and I ended up one time in the choir loft that the Kane street synagogue in Brooklyn, where somebody who may be a mutual friend of ours, Joey Weisenberg,
Yes.
was he he was kind of holding these open rehearsals of his ensemble that people could sort of just drop by, and it was up by the organ in the synagogue. And they were doing old, traditional liturgy, for the most part in wonderfully inventive new melodies. And there was kind of choral singing and all these different instruments. And I was actually so moved, sitting there, witnessing this musical liturgical creativity, that the poem basically just came out. I wanted to offer in language, what my heart was feeling about the music, and a kind of all in reverence for the way we were saying that, you know, the day is made new, the light is made new, there's these cycles of transformation. And language is made new as well, language and the way that we speak about the soul also needs to be dissolved and reinvented.
Absolutely. That's incredible. I, I also find that I am the most apt to be creatively channeled, after I've had an experience that has caused me to slow down and to focus and to notice and to be in the moment, whether that's a musical prayerful experience, or as you were saying before, being in a space of slowed down ness of just noticing the poetry that's happening around us all the time. And, you know, just reading and hearing the poem there is such a sense of, of being in the world and of the world bringing our full selves to it, even though I didn't know the backstory. It did feel so prayerful, and you are able to give us permission to share our truths and to express them. Part of what we're working on doing as well is encouraging people who have looked use the liturgy as their only form of prayer to remind them that prayer is something that happens in us and with in us and as the calling outs of our own hearts, and in the workshops that you and I lead together, because we do it through the form of poetry, that's the permission that it gives others is to be with their truth. And in fact, we call it and I want to put it in the podcast and we'll put information in the show notes. If you'd like to be part of these workshops, we call it real talk with the universe because it's just that we're encouraging people to share their full selves and to be present and truthful. So thank you so much for bringing this poem and your spirit and your story to us today.
It was a joy to be here and to commune with you all.
Thank you, okay.
So what are some melodies that we, like using, have used, brings out different qualities within this liturgy that those listening at home might want to use in their own practice? Or in a service? How about we start with you, Josh, what's his favorite melody for this paragraph?
So I grew up in I didn't know any melodies for this paragraph, right? This is one that we just sort of chanted through. And so the, the first melody that came to mind was the first melody that opened up the words for me in a way that helped me understand them because I had only just chanted them and not really thought about them so much. And that was the first time I heard this melody by Noam Katz at Hava Nashira, that Jewish music conference. And it's, it's about those same words that we've been sort of found we found in every translation right out so many words have been different in every translation, but the words that have stuck are this this rolling, rolling back and forth this continuous nature so that's the word that that melody focuses on roll into dark roll into light night becomes day day turns tonight and the sort of continuous nature but something that happens like Ellen saying gently it flows. So that one always sticks out for me.
Beautiful, I love that melody, so much to that word gollel gal gallim - wheels. It's it's right. It's right there. What does it mean for this continuous turning? Ellen, what's a melody you love?
I'm really taken by a more recent composition of the prayer that was written by Josh Nelson. And I like it he also in the chorus, the chorus is the Hebrew of bore yom vaila, go lol or mipnei choshech, v'choshech lefnei or, this same verses that Noam uses of the rolling and the creation of day and night. What I also appreciate about Josh's melody is that he does his own responsive reading between the Hebrew and the English. So I just share the words of a first verse with you. Because also I like the flow back in between the Hebrew and the English.
So his first verse says baruch ata adonai, speak the evening into being. Bechochma poteach shearim, as you turn the seasons round. Oomachalif et hazmanim, Let the stars keep watch above us. Barakia kirtzono, for the day and night are yours. And so I really appreciate that back and forth and his interpretive translation of the phrases that are in English and it's a very calming melody as you'll hear.
Beautiful.
The verse goes like this: baruch ata adonai speak the evening into being; bechochma poteach shearim, as you turn the seasons round, let the stars keep watch above us, barakia hakirtzono, for the day and night are yours. Bore yom valayla, bore yom valayla, golel or meepnei choshech, vechoshech meepnei or. And there's a second verse.
That was so beautiful! Thank you so much for singing that. It sounds familiar, I must have done it before somehow. Yeah. Sounds familiar to you too Josh. Also pleasant. It has like an arev quality. It's just nice and it's light. The melody that I'm thinking of is by Chava Mirel, which I actually got to sing with her when I was with her in person. It's for the whole paragraph there, different repeats different melody lines. It's one of those that you need to do the work to learn. But once you learn it, it's with you. And it's really rewarding. And we were at a congregation Friday night, and everyone in the room was singing along. And it was so beautiful. And it turns out, she had written it for this congregation years and years and years ago. And so that's also really special when you get a melody that's kind of with a particular congregation. But it's, it's in a minor key. It has a little bit of that underlying like the evening can be a scary time, energy, but we're going into it with bravery. And with a deep breath, and with our game faces on at least that's kind of how I feel about it. There's something also really powerful about moving through and vocalizing every word of the prayer in a way that we don't usually.
Wow, thank you so much, everyone for such an inspiring, delightful, pleasant evening. Have a conversation even though we're talking in the morning in the afternoon. As we sign off, I'd love to hear what is your prayer today? Just in one line? What is your prayer today, Ellen?
I begin with a quotation from Mary Oliver, who says, I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention. So my prayer is that, that we pay attention to those in between moments to the flow from one condition or one state to another. And may we be grateful for the gray. For those in between areas. That's my prayer.
Amen. Amen. Josh, what is your prayer today?
I'm holding on to I'm holding on to what Alexander said about telling the truth in your own language. And I think in a lot of ways, I approached the Psalms and read those words and explore the language that's been written already on the page. And I would like to give myself and all of us permission to tell the truth, in our own language, give myself permission to tell the truth in my own language, explore what that means and what that can mean for me and for how I walk in the world.
Amen, amen, Alexander, what's your prayer today?
I would say: May we create a place at the banquet table for all the various and multitudinous parts, especially the ones we have made to hide from the light. Amen.
Amen. I'm also sitting with the idea of stability amongst change. How can I be the expanse? Be solid in my ever changingness, and allow myself to be part of the world without always getting caught up in it? How can I be both observer and presence? How can I watch and be part of the evening of evenings? Notice what's going on out in the world and notice what's going on in my own heart. To maintain that sense, of, of awe and wonder and presence in my life, and a sense of gratitude, which is what I'm feeling for all of you for being here. Thank you so so much for being part of this light lab and hope to be together again soon.
