RE: What is Jewish Music - the Metaquestion

[Sam Weiss <samweiss...>]

"Jonathan Gordon" jbgordon (at) cloud9(dot)net wrote:

 >I wonder [what] exactly you mean, Sam,
 >by the burden of self-examination of National
 >identity being lifted for Israelis at the creation
 >of the state.

Jonathan, I'm actually in agreement with you, since I said the opposite 
of what you thought I said. Here's the Rashi:
I referred to a condition that is paradoxically at once a luxury and a 
burden. The "luxury" is that since in the diaspora we span national 
borders and we transcend (or as anti-Semites would have it, we fall 
short of) the usual parameters and definitions of what is a nation, we 
are not =limited= to mere nationalism in formulating self-definitions. 
It is this "luxury" that has been taken away from those who are content, 
since 1948, to adopt the more or less "standard" nationalistic 
parameters of land, government, national anthem, national language (in 
which bad rock superstars sing), etc. in defining who "we," formerly 
Jews, now are as a "people."

The "burden" (i.e. the moral obligation) pertaining to this (pre-1948, 
if you will,) trans-national peoplehood is that =we cannot hide= behind 
standard parameters in defining and limiting, for example, who are our 
"brethren" towards whom we should feel responsible (or - to tie it in 
with the original thread of this discussion - what constitutes "our" 
music). Therefore, I said, "for such [post-1948] Jews who also take 
pre-1948 Jewish cultural history seriously, the burden is daily becoming 
ever more onerous.
Or, as you put it:
 >From my friends in Israel and my
 >own observation I have learned that the current
 >moral crisis has raised rather than minimized the
 >significance and the difficulty of that process. Who
 >and what is Israel is an issue yet to be decided.


______________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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