[HANASHIR:3152] Reflections

[SSK <yuchia...>]

Evaluation of My First Hava Nashira:
Rediscovering My Spiritual Roots With The Oconomowocsher Chassidim

When I was a small child, growing up orthodox in Detroit in the late
50?s and early 60?s, the Stoliner Rebbe died while visiting a group of
his Chassidim who lived in Detroit. He was buried there, and every year
just before Pesach, the Stoliner Chassidim would come from New York for
the Rebbe?s yartzeit. They?d stay over Shabbos, and my father and I
would walk 2 miles to daven with them. To my eyes, these were the most
magical, mystical people I?d ever seen. They would dance and sing for
hours as they prayed, black satin capottes and whirling tzitzit; big
fur-trimmed shtriemels and long beards and a truly transcendent glow in
their eyes. After davening, an endless kiddush would bring more songs
and dancing, banging the table and stomping the old green linoleum
floors as they sang praises to God all through the day. And I remember
thinking then ?These people hear the music, they really hear the music
that I hear in my head all the time.? They were very strange, they spoke
in a heavily-accented Yiddish that I barely understood, but I felt an
instinctive spiritual kinship that seemed to define my feelings about
the divine beyond any means I possessed to express it.

As I grew up, my Jewish experiences were sometimes rewarding, sometimes
a bore and a chore; but they never approached that magic I saw as a
child ? that heartbreaking joy at the immensity and beauty and totality
of God?s universe. And the music I heard in my head would only
occasionally resonate in sync with the music that played here in the
world.

The music has never left my head. I hear melodies and harmonies all the
time, and I accepted the fact, sometime in my teens, that most people
don?t hear it. I?m the odd one, but it?s okay, I know I?m not the only
one ? and knowing that there are others out there who do hear it is a
comforting thing.

Last week, at my first Hava Nashira, I found myself for the first time
in a room with over a hundred people who hear the music, who have always
heard the music; and the sheer wonder of that simple fact would have
been enough of a revelation to make the week well worth it.

But something much more important happened. Somewhere, in the singing
and the workshops and the davening, I found my Chassidim. After
(literally) 40 years of wandering in the desert, keeping my spirit alive
with whatever glimmers of light I could find, or had time to think
about, I found my Chassidim. Certainly we looked nothing like those old
guys from my childhood. Women in tallit and tefillin, teenagers playing
rock and jazz and each prayer pouring out in a glorious 55-part harmony.

My Hava Nashira experience was, quite simply, stunning. I am stunned. I
am stunned by the sheer beauty of the voices I heard ? the talent I
witnessed. I am stunned by the depth of Donny Maseng. I am stunned by
the realizations I arrived at and by the possibilities that opened
before me. I am stunned by my own feelings.
Each emotional plateau led to yet another. I felt sure that closing our
eyes and hearing the rain hit the Tiferet skylight as we trailed Craig?s
?Shema Yisrael? to silence had to be the defining cosmic moment of my
week ? until the next day when Debbie led us in ?Yotser Ha m?orot? as
the power came back on, and we burst into tears in amazement.

Donny (Reb Donny?) is right ? the guitar is just the breath ? the music
is merely the vehicle ? we sing to achieve a means of getting out of our
own way and letting the miraculous occur, allowing a transmission as old
as time the opportunity to reach our stunned ears.

Thank you, my chaverim, my Oconomowocsher Chassidim, for showing me the
way home.

Hava Nashira, Shir Halleluiah.
Steve Klaper

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