[HANASHIR:3156] RE: Reflections

[Steve Greenberg <SIG...>]

Dear Steve,

Thanks for putting this in words -- it's lovely, and it helps me find ways
to express to other folks what happened last week.  I'm still in a bit of a
daze -- trying to return (albeit slowly and reluctantly) to my routines.

Take care,
Steve Greenberg

> -----Original Message-----
> From: SSK [SMTP:yuchia (at) mediaone(dot)net]
> Sent: Monday, June 07, 1999 2:15 PM
> To:   hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
> Subject:      [HANASHIR:3152] Reflections
> 
> 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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