[HANASHIR:9239] Re: Online Ruach

[rhonda wehner <songbyrd59...>]

All I can say to you is....mazel tov!  You have made
your life something wonderful and you should be proud!
  

Rhonda Wehner
--- Andy Curry <acurry (at) san-carlos(dot)rms(dot)slb(dot)com> wrote:
> At 10:14 PM 5/31/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >OK, chaverim:
> >So share some stories about how Judiasm and your
> involvement with Jewish
> >music has affected your life!
> 
> Friends,
> 
> I might say that my religion and its music have
> saved my life.
> 
> In 1988, I was newly married and newly clean.  At
> that time, I had not set
> foot in a synagogue for almost 20 years, preferring
> a life of playing in
> bands, cooking jobs to supplement the meager income
> from music, casual
> relationships, and spending almost all of my money
> on drugs.
> 
> One day, my wife, a lapsed Roman Catholic, suggested
> that we find a
> synagogue and attend services.  I wasn't too wild
> about the idea, but I
> said okay.
> 
> After calling around, we attended Friday night
> services at the large Reform
> temple here.  It happened that that night was a
> special "all-music"
> service, held in the chapel.
> 
> It's been said that love is a matter of rediscovery.
>  That night I
> rediscovered something I had enjoyed as a child. 
> And, speaking of
> rediscovery, one of the leaders that night was
> fellow HNer Devra Lerner,
> with whom I went to grade school in 1960.
> 
> Well, I joined the congregation.  I joined the
> choir.  I joined the
> religious-school faculty.  I reacquainted myself
> with Hebrew.
> 
> The winter of 1994/95 brought me a collection of
> personal crises, including
> divorce, death of my father, and loss of my job. 
> What I did with the void
> was fill it with Jewishness.  I attended services
> daily to say kaddish, and
> often led them.  I studied Torah.  I studied
> liturgy.  I did my first gig
> as HHD shaliach tzibur, which I've done every year
> since.  I acquired
> tallit and tefillin and tallit katan and relearned
> their use.  I began to
> keep kosher.  I learned to chant Torah.
> 
> Life does not wait for us.  What a person does with
> his time reflects what
> he worships.  When I speak of Judaism having saved
> my life, what I mean is
> that I have been saved from emptiness, from those
> malformed angels which
> are created from (worshipful) acts of negative or
> void intention.  I
> believe that my life is more satisfying now than
> ever before, baruch Hashem.
> 
> Shabbat shalom.
> 
> Andy
> 
> Andy Curry, Kansas City
> acurry (at) san-carlos(dot)rms(dot)slb(dot)com
> 
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