Judge Dennis Davis
Music Meets Modern Orthodoxy: A Tribute to Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Judge Dennis Davis and Professor David Peimer - Music Meets Modern Orthodoxy: A Tribute to Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

- And welcome to everybody. This is a presentation that David Peimer and I are doing in relation to the questions. We’ve titled it “Music Meets Modern Orthodoxy.” It’s our attribute to Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Zikhrono livrakha. May his memory be blessed. Let me just say a few things to start with. I’ve used the term “modern orthodoxy” in the broadest possible sense here for the following reason. What we’re seeking to capture is, Rabbi Sacks seems to me at least, speaking for myself, to have basically been in a tradition which stretches back a very long time. You can look at the work of my monodies and my particular reference here to the “Guide to the Perplexed,” which if you read it, and it is a remarkable philosophical work, really draws heavily on Aristotelian philosophy. And of course, if one then moves the dial into the 19th century, we of course have Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who essentially tried to combine the secular to enrich the tradition in considerable ways. And it does seem to me that that then of course got a head of steam up. Certainly, in particularly in the United States of America, I have in mind, for example, the work of Rav Soloveitchik, who had a doctorate in philosophy and who combined neo-Kantian philosophy with these particularly careful analysis of HaHalacha and its implications. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t a clear architect and promoter of the Orthodox tradition, but he was able to infuse his knowledge of that through drawing on a whole range of philosophical traditions. And the same, of course, there’ve been others, such as, for example, Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, a son-in-law. Also zikhrono livrakha.

May his memory be blessed. Son-in-law of, of Rav Soloveitchik. Of course, in 1946, Yeshiva University proclaimed the notion of Torah Umadda. Loosely translated is Torah and general knowledge. And perhaps the point was made best by Rabbi Norman Lamm, who became the rector of Yeshiva University when a very famous article in 1969 spoke about modern orthodoxy representing something that was Halachically legitimate, philosophically persuasive, religiously inspiring, and personally convincing. And it seems to me that in his own way, Jonathan Sacks represented precisely that, this extraordinary ability to essentially be faithful to the tradition, to the development of HaHalacha, to the enrichment of Jewish life, but in a way that was philosophically persuasive, Hahalachically legitimate, religiously inspiring, and for many of us personally convincing. But let me just say a word about that. I never met Rabbi Sacks, and that of course is my great impoverishment. I did admittedly attend the Marble Arch Synagogue when I was at Cambridge, and we landed up in Rosh Hashanah in London. And on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I can’t remember why, but I went to the Marble Arch Shul and there was this very young rabbi who was incredibly inspiring, and that turned out to be Rabbi Sacks. Many years later, I heard him give a lecturer in Cape Town.

Never met him, I wasn’t really part of the Jewish establishment in Cape Town, so I wasn’t invited to any meeting with him personally, but I remember him lecturing. And I also remember much to my amusement, many other people said it was a night that Arsenal were playing in the European Championship final. And if you may recall, Rabbi Sacks was a very keen Arsenal supporter. And so the point I’m trying to make, I suppose, in this musical tribute to Rabbi Sacks is the ability of Jonathan Sacks, who was really international treasure and certainly a treasure to Judaism and the Jewish tradition, to have essentially used the secular to enrich the tradition. In 2002, in the book, “The Dignity of Difference,” which did get him into some trouble, Rabbi Sacks spoke about the fact that God has spoken to mankind in many languages through Judaism to the Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to the Muslims, God is the God of all humanity, but no single faith is or should be the faith of all humanity. He did soften the language to say, “As Jews, we believe that God has made a covenant of the singular people, but that does not exclude the possibility of other people’s cultures and faiths finding their own relationship with God.” And in 2/15 in an interview when he was asked about this, he played down the significance of this revision and saying, “When extremists call you a heretic, that’s their way of giving you an honorary doctorate.”

So Rabbi Sacks seems to me somebody who was able to combine that. For me, this was enormously inspirational. So even though I never met him, in a sense, he met me as he met many of us, I’m sure, on this call. In our family, every Friday night, every Shabbat on Friday evening, I would religiously, if I could choose that word, read his “Covenant and Conversation” on the Parashat HaShavua. And for me, that was really a way of trying to convey some insights about Torah in general and the Parashah in particular to my children, to my family. And of course, what was remarkable about them was precisely the way in which the “Covenant and Conversation” essentially was located in precisely the tradition which I have been referring to. So with that in mind, with those small, and of course one could develop this particular presentation in greater detail, but it was in that context that one has used the word “modern orthodoxy.” And we were asked, David and I, to essentially look at the question of the relationship between John Sacks and music, which he loved very much. I have drawn, for my little selection, on pieces that he chose when he was interviewed in Desert Island Discs and the Passions, the two BBC interviews that he gave in which he basically chose music. And what I propose to do is to play very short clips of four such items and perhaps just give a little context to each of them. And then perhaps the much more important part is the part that David’s going to do. No pressure on you, David, but the truth is that why I say that is because David is going to talk in particular about Rabbi Sacks and Leonard Cohen.

And in a sense, I think that kind of gets us towards the conclusion of our presentation, something to the heart of the enterprise of which Rabbi Sacks was engaged for so many years. So with that in mind and with a great sense of feeling that the person who enriched my Shabbat with “Covenant and Conversation.” Let me then start to talk a little bit about the music that I have chosen, which is basically the choice of Rabbi Sacks, and which to to some considerable extent reflects my very point that I’ve made. The ability to see great deal of richness in cultures beyond Judaism nonetheless, seeing it through Jewish eyes and through Jewish tradition. So in his interview when he gave, in one of the two programmes in which he was interviewed about music, Rabbi Sacks spoke about the fact about how his father, and what’s interesting, his father wasn’t a rabbi, his father seemed to be a businessman, and how his father was desperate to get the young Jonathan to love classical music. And Rabbi Sacks explains that as a teenager he wasn’t interested in any of this. And then finally he said his father hit upon an idea which got Jonathan engaged in the idea of classical music, and what got him engaged was playing for him, for the young Jonathan Sacks, the “1812 Overture” by Tchaikovsky. And Rabbi Sacks says that in this particular regard, he heard it probably at the Albert Hall.

And of course the the “1812 Overture,” which many of us in many ways, I suppose, entered classical music, those of us who come from Cape Town may remember that there used to be Sunday night concerts at Court Nine on Sunday night where live classics were played. And many times the “1812” was played a greater claim there. And of course it is, as Rabbi Sacks themself said, after it was played, it’s the thing you want to cheer because 16 cannon shots are written into the score of the “Overture”. It begins with the plaintive “Slavic Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross” played by eight cellos and four violas, which of course is particularly interesting in the context of which I’ve been referring Rabbi Sacks. And then through a mixture of pastoral and marshal themes portraying the increasing distress of the Russian people at the hands of the invading French. And then of course there’s a turning point, which is reflects the Battle of Borodino. The score called for five Russian cannon shots confronting the repetitive fragment of “La Marseillaise.” Then there’s a descending spring passage representing the retreat of the right of the French forces, followed by victory bells and triumphant repetition of, “God Preserve Thy people” as Moscow burns to lie winter quarters to the French. The music chase scene appears out of which emerges the anthem, “God Save the Tsar,” thundering with 11 more scored shots from the canon, and effectively the piece ends.

So it’s quite a remarkable piece. Tchaikovsky hated it, by the way, but it is interesting in its sense. And I’m going to just play for you the last three minutes of the “1812 Overture,” which Rabbi Sacks said was the first time he’d entered the world of classical music. So David, if we could have the first one. Thanks, Lauren. Well, I think you will agree with me when Rabbi Sacks ask the interviewer to play that. As he said, at the end of it, you just want to get off your chair and cheer. And you can understand why as a young person you’d be introduced to classical music in this particular way. I move then to two much more serious pieces. In the selection that he chose, Rabbi Sacks spoke quite a lot about Mahler. And I, as you know, or some of you may know in this Lockdown University, I’ve lectured quite a lot about Mahler, or some of the Mahler symphonies. One of the symphonies that I did not lecture on was Mahler’s fourth. which was the one that Rabbi Sacks chose to talk about. And the Mahler fourth symphony, he chose the third movement of the fourth symphony. And I’ll tell you why in a moment, but let me just say this about the fourth symphony. I can’t obviously give you a lecture tonight, but it’s really interesting, the point that he made. Mahler’s fourth symphony was written 1901 and it was a symphony which was supposed to be a child’s view of heaven. It ends with a soprano. And there’s a whole debate about how that should be sung, but that’s another matter.

But in writing about the symphony, Mahler explained to his correspondent, Natalie Bauer-Lechner, he said the following: “What I had in mind here was extraordinarily difficult to bring off. Think of the undifferentiated blue of the sky, which is harder to capture in any changing and contrasting shades. This is the basic tone of the whole work. Only once does it become overcast and uncannily awesome, but it is not the sky itself which grows dark, for it shines eternally blue. It is only that it seems suddenly sinister to us, just as on the most beautiful day, in a forest flooded with sunshine, one is often overcome by a shudder of panic dread.” And what is interesting, as Rabbi Sacks suggested, quite rightly, it seems to me, that in his music, Mahler had foreshadowed what was going to happen to Europe in general and the Jewish people in particular. I had always thought, and when I lectured on this to you, I had emphasised the ninth symphony as being the quintessential reflection of that, and if not, the sixth symphony for reasons that I can’t go into now. Rabbi Sacks felt that this third movement, which is a remarkable movement, the slow movement of the fourth symphony in which Mahler said it reminded of his mother’s smile.

And although it has a few idiosyncrasies, it has a sort of double theme. Two main melodies alternate and are varied with each reappearance. The first, which begins the movement, is a tender melody that first appears in the cello, the second, a much more plaintive, melancholy line in the oboe. And they alternate. Now, whether it reminded Mahler of his mother or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that what Rabbi Sacks suggested, was that in this movement, Mahler seemed to foreshadow the trauma that was to engulf Europe and the Jewish people less than 40 years later. And he felt that for him, this was particularly important in Mahler’s music. And what is particularly interesting to me, of course, is the way in which Mahler himself having converted to Catholicism and battling with his identity for all of his reasons that I’ve advanced earlier seemed to speak to Rabbi Sacks in exactly same way as I think Mahler speaks to so many of us, myself included. I’ve chosen just to give you the first couple of minutes of the third movement of the “Mahler 4” conducted by Leonard Bernstein. And I do that because Rabbi Sacks, in the very interview to which I’ve referred, spoke with great pride about the fact that Leonard Bernstein himself had turned up in Rosh Hashanah in the Marble Arch Shul and been extraordinarily kind and spoken to the family, et cetera of this great conductor.

Rabbi Sacks spoke really with great fondness and kindness about Leonard Bernstein. So I thought it would be appropriate just to give two or three minutes of the third movement of the fourth symphony, which as I say, for Rabbi Sacks spoke about the foreshadowing that was to come. And here it is. Okay, Lauren, I think we can move on. Thank you. I’d love to play more of that, but time is of the essence as well. And Mahler’s fourth does deserve its own analysis. But it is interesting for me the way that was chosen by Rabbi Sacks, but the spin or the interpretation that he put on it, I leave that to you. The third piece that I’ve chosen also comes from a selection that he chose, which of course is the Bach double concerto. This comes from a collection. I’ve chosen from that same collection that he chose. And here’s the Bach double concerto for violin, which is played in this recording by Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern. Now it’s interesting that somebody who’s the chief rabbi would’ve chosen that is one of these pieces. It is one of the great Bach pieces, there’s no question, written in around 1730. Oddly enough, its first performance was in a coffee house.

But why I found that particularly interesting is even if it started off in a secular surrounding, a coffee house rather than a church, Bach himself was a sincere Lutheran, church musician. Quite clearly intended this piece to be morally educative and engaging, but he repeatedly endorsed the idea that even instrumentalist music must represent virtue and evil, to arouse in the listener love for the former and hated for the latter. And there’s no question that each of these musical elements, he carves into this particular piece of music. It basically is in the key of D minor, which is usually employed for emotional states. And certainly true, he probably chose that as the concerto’s home key precisely because of this attempt at some form of religious engagement, telling a story as it were through the two violins of two faithful lovers, who are so constantly in loving faith experiencing the bliss of heaven. And I suppose in that sense, there’s a link to the “Mahler 4,” which of course is a child’s version of heaven. And it was one of the pieces, therefore, that Rabbi Sacks chose, and I found particularly intriguing for all of the reasons I’ve just advanced. Again, this is not the place to go into a full analytical analysis of the Bach double concerto, but here is the first part of the first movement, played, as I said, by Stern and Perlman and conducted by Mehta.

Thanks, Lauren. Thank you very much. So I find it really interesting to support the propositions I advanced at the beginning, which of course, very, very kind of telegramatic analysis, which deserves far more in depth discussion about the sort of theological position of Rabbi Sacks, but I do find it fascinating that here we have both Bach with a view of heaven, Mahler with a view of heaven, and a rabbi who truly found these inspirational, beautiful works, which most of us do. That kind of combination of understanding that the secular can speak to us too, even if it does do so through the prism of our tradition. But it seems to me only right when one pays tribute to somebody like Jonathan Sacks, who made such an extraordinary contribution, to end my little part with a bridge into David’s by referring to the fact that when he did these interviews, he also did assert the importance of Jewish music in particular, and of course of hazzanut. And what he played on the BBC was, and he seemed very proud of, rightly said, was the fact that there was a new version of the Ashrei, which had been composed by Lion Rosenfeld and choir, the Shabbaton Choir for his inauguration 1991. And I’ll merely say this about Ashrei, that the Talmud through Rabbi Eliezer in the name of Avina says that anyone who recites this three times- Well, recites the Ashrei prayer and indeed the broader Tefilah Le-David, to which we add the introductory verse in prayer three times each day actually is worthy to be in the world to come. And the reason why we are told that Ashrei in particular is such an important prayer is because it is.

It uses, of course, every letter in the alphabet. And some commentators suggest that this acrostic, employing the alphabet from beginning to end conveys how exhausting the totality of human language in an almost futile attempt to praise God adequately. And in fact, whether in fact the totality of human language is insufficient to do that is of course a debate we can have. Unquestionably, if anybody employed the human language to try to capture the dilemmas of faith, and indeed faith for us in the 21st century, it has to be the 30 books and the huge amount of other contributions that Rabbi Sacks has made. And therefore, it seems to me to be appropriate, for me at least, to play a little bit of the Ashrei as sung by Lion Rosenfeld and the Shabbaton Choir. And of course, in memory, not only just of Rabbi Sacks, but of course of his inauguration as the chief rabbi in 1991. So here are just the first little bit of the Ashrei. All right, Lauren, that’s fine. You can stop it. And David, over to you.

• Dennis, thanks so much. And so hi, everybody, and hope you’re well. And thanks to Lauren for helping us putting it together. What I want you to come in here in this short tribute to Rabbi Sacks, and in taking up the narrative that Dennis has been mentioning in terms of the modern sense of we could call it a creative tension, we could call it a creative interaction, intersections between the secular and the orthodoxy in a late 20th, 21st century context. And what I was inspired by amongst many things in looking at very contemporary music that he really appreciated and spoke about and responded to, there were quite a few, I’m going to focus on Leonard Cohen for, I guess, fairly clear reasons, but he also mentioned artists as individual as Eminem, who is really the working class, the underclass of white America and rap music. He mentions Art Garfunkel, little bit on Paul Simon.

I had the pleasure of meeting Art Garfunkel quite a few times and working with his actress wife, and a whole range of others. That quite fascinating when one looks at the classical and the very contemporary and how he could find a way to appreciate, to echo as Dennis was saying, through the prism of this in a sense which are very contemporary, the horns of the dilemma of very contemporary times of the secular and the orthodoxy, of the sceptical and the faith, if you like. Obviously these are very ancient questions, but how this this vision is framed and narrated in a contemporary context is what inspires me from the interviews with Rabbi Sacks and some of some of his own writings. And I’m going to focus primarily just on two of Leonard Cohen songs. If there’s time, we’ll look at a third as well. And these are the two that he actually spoke the most about. I’m not going to look at the life of Leonard Cohen. I did that before when we gave a lecture on his remarkable work. We can look it in different ways. And I’m not looking at the whole life of Rabbi Sacks either, but just in his brief little moment of tribute to a quite fascinating and remarkable human being, Jonathan Sacks, who had a range, almost a renaissance sense of music and culture and religion and tradition and education and university and history and nation. Putting all these things together, it’s important because it is a sense of an appeal to a little bit of a renaissance mind, a way of thinking, a way of being long forgotten and long compartmentalised in contemporary society. Before I go into Leonard Cohen, the two songs in particular, a couple of key ideas, and these are inspired from Rabbi Sacks’ writings and interviews.

And he gave this amazing talk, it’s about a 12 minute piece on YouTube shortly after Leonard Cohen died, and I’m going to refer to that in this here, some of the ideas. He spoke about how divisive things are not only in the American election of recent times, but in the world. Of Brexit, he mentions American election elsewhere, Europe, et cetera, a sense of a divisiveness, a sense of a disunity. Obviously there are enormous economic and other global and geopolitical influences here, but a sense of a spirit of the age of a zeitgeist, how it’s shifted to a divisiveness, we know the rise of the far right, et cetera, the rise of antisemitism and so on, that the world has got a bit darker. And it’s a cliched phrase, but it links to Leonard Cohen’s song, “You Want It Darker,” which is a title of Cohen’s song. The Secular and the orthodoxy, and variations of those two ancient perceptions. And this for me is located when Rabbi Sacks mentions in the one interview the position of Job from the Bible. And here I’m paraphrasing from Rabbi Sacks. If we were to imagine ourselves in the shoes of Job, doubting, questioning, asking, “What is God? Who is God? Where?” given the extraordinarily horrific history of the 20th century obviously in relation to Judaism and the Jewish world totally, and others, given that, what is the position? What is the role of faith, scepticism, scientific reason, questioning?

The marginal questioning, challenging spirit, if you like, together with the role of faith and beliefs in ancient traditions, ancient beliefs, and ancient values, which are as resonant today as in any other time, through the eyes of Job or standing in the shoes of Job. And Rabbi Sacks tries to put himself in there and suggests that Leonard Cohen is also in a sense wearing the shoes of Job and trying to come to understand Cohen’s own history and background, which I’m sure many know I’m not going into. A very religious background, upbringing, schools, et cetera. But Leonard Cohen trying through his music and his lyrics, trying to take on the shoes of Job to give us a sense of trying to articulate some understandings of our contemporary world. “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” The two great classic lines of Leonardo Cohen, which I’m sure many know, but they are eternally resonant. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Can be a tiny little crack, can be a larger crack, doesn’t matter. In the moments of despair, of questioning, of doubting not only religion and God and other things and faith, but the very nature, or the darkening of human nature perhaps returning to a certain degree. He spoke about this as a song for our time, that Cohen is a songwriter for our times. “If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game.” It’s God. “God, if you’re the dealer, I’m not playing your game. What is the game you’re playing?” “But if you are the healer, I’m broken in lame.”

Extraordinary two lines from Leonard Cohen. He spoke about Leonard Cohen having a dissident view of life and religion. Now, this is Rabbi Sacks’ words, not mine. And the last song, “You Want It Darker,” contains elements from the Kaddish. Magnified, sanctified, crucified, which are English translations in the chorus. Hineni was mentioned a number of times in the song. “Here I am.” The reference to Abraham and Isaac, of course, and the sacrifice of Abraham’s son. And the idea of… The three ideas of Rabbi Sacks mentions in in this biblical narrative. “God, first you say you want me to bring my son to sacrifice to you. I love you, but you want me to sacrifice my own son?” I mean, this parable is extraordinarily powerful. “Then that is my link to you, God, and eternity, so I must sacrifice him?” Second doubt question. And third, “At the last second you say, ‘Stop, don’t kill my boy.’ What is going on, God? What’s happening in here?” And I’m looking at it from the layman’s perspective and from Leonard Cohen’s. And Rabbi Sacks trying to tap in from let’s say people who are not necessarily well versed in all the details and debates of the Jewish religion and Talmud and many other things. But just these simple parable from that story, which Leonard Cohen writes about and brings into the songs. It’s a questioning spirit.

And he goes on, Rabbi Sacks, about Cohen. “Okay, God, I can like you, I can love you, but look at the world you’ve created. We’re humans in your own image. Okay. But what is this world? What is this 20th century when they scream horror of the Jews and others? I can love you, but if you’re the dealer, if you’re the healer, who are you? Are you the dealer? Are you the healer?” And so on. But Leonard Cohen does confirm his, if not a love for God and awe and a profound belief in a God spirit, if you like. I wouldn’t be as simple and cliche of talking about just a love for God, but I would say a belief in something really powerful there. And that comes through the tradition in many variegated forms. That crack where the light gets in, no matter what, standing in the shoes of Job, there will be a crack where the light can get in. The Kaddish prayer and so on that I mentioned. “Hineni, here I am,” which is what Abraham says, as we know, in the biblical narrative. So what is he getting at? And Rabbi Sacks mentions that in spite of it all, in spite of the despair, in spite of the horror, in spite of the evil, not only of the 20th century, but of thousands of years you can still praise a God. You can still say one word, “Hallelujah,” which links to Leonard Cohen’s other song, which I’m going to play today if there’s time. Even in the midst of hate, even in the midst of so much killing and murder and hate and prejudice and all the other darker sides of our human nature, which we all have, we can find moments of compassion.

Or a Primo Levi puts it so brilliantly, the title of his one book, “Moments of Reprieve.” In the darkness, moments of reprieve, where the light gets in. Goethe. Goethe said and Rabbi Sacks alludes to this, which is a wonderful phrase, “Religious worship cannot do without music. It is the foremost means to work upon man to have the effect of sheer marvel.” Now that’s a translation obviously from the German Goethe. And I think Goethe puts it philosophically and poetically beautifully effectively. And Rabbi Sacks alludes to this to understand the connection of music in religion itself. Not only in the message of of religion, but in the very visceral experience of it. You mentioned some of Oliver Sacks and some of these works with neurologically impaired patients and the role of music there and so on as well. The one other one point I would like to mention is, interestingly, Rabbi Sacks quoted Rilke. I just want to show the range of his mind, that he was reading many from secular and non-secular worlds, obviously, trying to understand in a renaissance way, in our times, ways to try and find the words to articulate our contemporary experience. Rilke, “Words still go softly out to say the unsayable, but music, music is always new. From palpitating stones, music is from stones, but it builds in useless space a godly home. Music will build with stones in a godless, useless space, a godly home.” The history of the spirit of our times, the history of the Jewish spirit, I want to suggest, through songs, through literature, through poetry from King David all the way through to Leonard Cohen and many, many others comes through this, and this one mind of the rabbi trying to interpret. Okay, if we could play the the second song there, please, Lauren,

SONG BEGINS

“You Want it Darker.” It’s the one after this. Lauren, not this one, the one after this, please. ♪ If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game ♪ ♪ If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame ♪ ♪ If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame ♪ ♪ You want it darker ♪ ♪ We kill the flame ♪ ♪ Magnified, sanctified ♪ ♪ Be thy holy name ♪ ♪ Vilified, crucified ♪ ♪ In the human frame ♪ ♪ A million candles burning ♪ ♪ For the help that never came ♪ ♪ You want it darker ♪ ♪ Hineni, hineni ♪ ♪ I’m ready, my Lord ♪ ♪ There’s a lover in the story ♪ ♪ But the story’s still the same ♪ ♪ There’s a lullaby for suffering ♪ ♪ And a paradox to blame ♪ ♪ But it’s written in the scriptures ♪ ♪ And it’s not some idol claim ♪ ♪ You want it darker ♪ ♪ We kill the flame ♪ ♪ They’re lining up to prisoners ♪ ♪ And the guards are taking aim ♪ ♪ I struggle with some demons ♪ ♪ They were middle class and tame ♪ ♪ I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim ♪ ♪ You want it darker ♪ ♪ Hineni, hineni ♪ ♪ I’m ready, my Lord ♪ ♪ Magnified, sanctified ♪ ♪ Be thy holy name ♪ ♪ Vilified, crucified ♪ ♪ In the human frame ♪ ♪ A million candles burning ♪ ♪ For the love that never came ♪ ♪ You want it darker ♪ ♪ We kill the flame ♪ ♪ If you are the dealer, let me out of the game ♪ ♪ If you are the healer, I’m broken and lame ♪ ♪ If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame ♪ ♪ You want it darker ♪ ♪ Hineni, hineni ♪ ♪ Hineni, hineni ♪ ♪ I’m ready, my Lord ♪ ♪ Hineni ♪ ♪ Hineni ♪ ♪ Hineni ♪ ♪ Hineni ♪

SONG ENDS

• Thanks, Lauren. If we can go onto the next slide with the lyrics. Just want to look at a couple of lines here and then play out with the last song, the great classic, “Hallelujah,” which Rabbi Sacks also spoke about in these two very important interviews. “If you’re the dealer, I’m out of the game.” He’s speaking to God, in my opinion. “If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame.” The extraordinary paradox and contradictions the poet is trying to grapple with in the shoes of Job, given Leonard Cohen’s own background with so much religious and Jewish history and education behind him and religion with him, and yet trying to grapple with it with a secular and orthodoxy combination of faith. “If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame.” Extraordinary, these lines. “Magnified, sanctified.” We spoke about that and the links to the Kaddish, you can hear that singing at the end. And the sense of lamentation, which I get when I read the songs of David, and I’m sure many, many millions do as well. “Hineni, hineni.” Suddenly bring in a reference to the story of the biblical narrative of Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice. Sacrifice, the sacrificed, and the God. “Vilified, crucified.” Reference to Christ. So many that the poet, being a poet will bring in not just a singular meaning or singular narrative, open for interpretation. “The story’s still the same.”

The story’s ancient. The story’s contemporary. “Paradox is to blame. It’s written in the scriptures.” It’s constantly bringing in the echoes of the ancient past. And then there’s extraordinary lines. “They’re lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim.” We can relate that to so many contexts of the 20th century and the 21st century. We don’t have to be literal, we know it. And then this amazing two lines, “I struggle with some demons. They were middle class and tame.” There’s such irony and paradox in that and humble self-awareness. Leonard Cohen knows he’s middle class. What were his real demons? Middle class and tame compared to starving billions around the planet, perhaps, and others. “I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim.” The links, we could spend a semester probably just analysing some of this as sheer brilliant poetry. “Magnified. A million candles burning.” And coming to the end again, “Hineni.” “If you’re the dealer, let me out of the game.” “Let me out” this time. Not, “I’m going out,” but, “Please let me out. I can’t take it.” “But if you’re the healer, I’m broken in lame.” I need your help, God, please.

So in the moments of paradox and contradiction of ambivalence that we all live day-to-day, pleading, “Help. Where are you? Come help me, please.” Like, “If you’re the healer- If you’re the dealer, whoa, I’m terrified given what’s happened in the past. Hineni. But I’m here. Here I am, I’m still here with you. I haven’t forsaken you, God.” It’s the creative collisions between the secular and the orthodoxy. Okay, I want to play out with “Hallelujah” and then just look at a couple of lines and then we’ll end it together. If we can have the next song please. Thanks, Lauren. This has been watched by over 200 million on YouTube.

SONG BEGINS

♪ I’ve heard there was a secret chord ♪ ♪ That David played, and it pleased the Lord ♪ ♪ But you don’t really care for music, do you? ♪ ♪ It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth ♪ ♪ The minor falls, the major lifts ♪ ♪ The baffled king composing Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Your faith was strong but you needed proof ♪ ♪ You saw her bathing on the roof ♪ ♪ Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you ♪ ♪ She tied you to a kitchen chair ♪ ♪ She broke your throne, and she cut your hair ♪ ♪ And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Now, maybe there’s a God above ♪ ♪ As for me all I’ve ever learned from love ♪ ♪ Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you ♪ ♪ But it’s not a crime that you’re here tonight ♪ ♪ It’s not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the Light ♪ ♪ No, it’s a cold and it’s a very broken Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪

SONG ENDS

• Lauren, if we can hold it, please. I know time is a bit short. If we could just go to the lyrics. Just wanted to point out just one or two things about some of the lyrics of the song. First, I just want to really say this has had been watched by 200 million people on YouTube. That’s one in about every 38/40 on the planet has listened to this song of Leonard Cohen. On the planet. Talk about a poet of our times. One song, one poem, reaching so many? 200 million? It’s extraordinary to me. And all over, not just in the Western world. He’d bring you together, David, if you care for music or you don’t, well, music is something to lift us in spite of the despair or the hard times of life. Bringing together the story of Bathsheba and David, the other great story of Samson and Delilah and the difference between the two. And then “Hallelujah” thrown in. And then coming after, “But it’s not a crime that you’re here tonight. It’s not some pilgrim who claimed to have seen the Light. It’s a cold and very broken Hallelujah.” Well, there are times in all our lives we know this, but the irony and the greatness of art and music and theatre and literature that works can transcend despair by ironically making beauty out of horror of whatever one experiences in daily life or in a bigger historical level.

Most people have been here before. “Well, people have been here before. I know this room and I’ve walked this floor and I’ve seen a flag on the marble arch, but listen, love, love is not some kind of victory march.” And I’ve heard so many people from all walks of life and countries around the world that I’ve been fortunate to be in touch with quote that phrase, “Love is not some kind of victory march, no, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.” It’s a Hallelujah, something to celebrate, but it’s cold and broken, and et cetera. And then the last part at the bottom here, “Now I’ve done my best. I know it wasn’t much. I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch. I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to London just to fool you, but even though it all went wrong, I stand here right before the Lord of Song with nothing, nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.” In the spirit of Job, in the spirit of Rabbi Sacks’ part of his world anyway that inspires some of us today or many people, I think, around the world in this tension that we’ve spoken about here today. That there’s may be nothing in Leonard Cohen’s phrase, but there is on the tongue the song, the word, Hallelujah. There are things to celebrate, things to hold onto. And they go way back in ancient Jewish religion and ancient Jewish traditions. There are certain things. What the symbol of this word means, and it has all the metaphoric and literal connotations of this one word, Hallelujah.

Despite it all, Leonard Cohen comes to this one word. And for me, this is something of a tribute to trying to get to grips with some of the unsettling, disturbing moments of quiet despair and darkening forces perhaps of our times. We still find, with nothing on my tongue but a Hallelujah. And I think in the end, Rabbi Sacks invites us to remember not only in the moments of extreme darkness, but in any other times of life, what can all this tradition and all this history and religion of Judaism bring back to an ordinary human person just trying to get by, trying to make a buck, trying to bring up a family, have children, do whatever in their own lives. And I think the poet in Leonard Cohen is able to touch all of these different aspects from the huge macro of Jewish history and Jewish religion and the spirits to the ordinary every day. Thanks.

• So can I just make one comment, David, with regard to “You Want It Darker,” because it seems to be very important to bring us back to Rabbi Sacks in this sense. When he paid tribute to Leonard Cohen by analysing that, what is remarkable is he referred to Rashi’s commentary on the Akedah Yitzhak, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Rabbi Sacks in referring to Leonard Cohen’s lyrics. And the way in which the Midrash talks about precisely the point, that having instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son, then of course the end, the “Hineni,” which was repeated three times by Leonard Cohen, three times in the actual text itself. It’s a remarkable kind of analysis. The simple point is this, that what Abraham is saying to God is, “What do you want from me? I do not know. But one thing I do know is that if you want me to be in a world where people die in the way they do, if you want me to be in a world that ultimately has to sacrifice this way, I’m not sure I want to be in that world.” And why I want to end our presentation is ‘cause as I reflected on in fact, and there’s a massive amount that you can talk about the Akedah, or the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Leonard Cohen, the point for me in relation to Rabbi Sacks was precisely that.

That this is always a struggle. Faith is not a given. Faith is struggle for a daily basis. After all, we are Bene Israel, the sons of Israel or the sons of Yaakov. His name was Yaakov before he struggled with God. And when I think when Rabbi Sacks was referring to Leonard Cohen and Leonard Cohen’s questioning of in fact what was going on in our world precisely through the prism of the Akedah, the question for me was, “Was Rabbi Sacks not talking about himself?” Was he not talking about the daily struggle that you have to assert faith in a world which so often seems godless? And the fact that he asserted faith and the fact that he actually was able to transcend those doubts, this is Rabbi Sacks, I think he was engaging with Leonard Cohen in that way. And it’s remarkable if that was the case because it seems to me that’s the greatness of the person. That through doubt, you hold onto faith and you try to reconstruct it in order to address the world in which you’re located. And therefore, we end this little tribute to Rabbi Sacks, it’s the end of the week, perhaps in an appropriate way by reflecting on precisely those questions. There are some questions I see. Should we just quickly go through a couple of them? I don’t know. Wendy, I see you. Are we allowed to do it?

• Yeah, so Dennis- No, you are, I just wanted to thank you very much for that absolutely extraordinary presentation. Thank you to both of you. I’m sorry it was difficult for me to log on. I was actually at the South African award ceremony. And so I just try and jump on 'cause I’m just here for the weekend, so I just wanted to say thank you. That was absolutely outstanding. Okay, good. Have you got time for some questions?

• I’ll just deal quickly with questions. There are a few.

• That’s fine. Thank you very much.

• Okay. Yeah, pleasure.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: The first question by Heather, “Would Rabbi Sacks have listened to opera or other vocal works that included women singers?”

A: I don’t know, but of course, Heather, what you’re referring is the concept of kol isha, the voice of women. But I’ll tell you this, he must have, because if you listen to the “Mahler 4,” the last movement has a woman’s voice. So I very much doubt that Rabbi Sacks only listened to three movements of Mahler when he spoke so eloquently about it. “Ashrei,”

Q: Judith, “omits the letter Nun. Is there an explanation?”

A: There are a number of explanations for this, Judith. There is the issue that we haven’t got the correct Ashrei, but the Talmud would also suggests that the word Nun is being excluded from Ashrei because it reflect a reference to Amos and Nafal, the destruction, the falling of Israel, and therefore we excluded it for that particular basis.

Monty, “Today in 'The Observer,’ there’s an article how Cohen-” Yes. Precisely, that’s what I was trying to, both of us were suggesting. It’s a remarkable mining. And I would recommend to everybody, they go Google and they listen to Rabbi Sacks’ 12 minutes on Leonard Cohen and the analysis of “You Want It Darker.” It’s a fabulous illustration of precisely that. Yes, thank you, Monty. There’s a Yiddish version.

Peter7 says, “Regarding the meaning of the song, ‘Hallelujah,’ Leonard Cohen said, ‘This world is full of conflict and full of things that cannot be reconciled, but there are moments when we can reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by Hallelujah. The song explains that many kinds of Hallelujahs do exist and all the perfect and broken Hallelujahs have equal value. It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with emotion.’” And that’s true, I just want to make one point before I hand over to David. Of course, the question about the cracks and the light comes in through the cracks, of course, that is a reference to Shevirat ha-Kelim, the idea, the mystical idea that when the world was created, the light was too heavy for it, and therefore it cracked and therefore the light always comes in through the cracks. And it is through the cracks that we ultimately just see and perceive the divine, but in a cracked form. I don’t know if, David, I interrupted you. I’m sorry.

• No, no, no. Thanks Dennis. Thanks for making that linkage about the cracks. Yeah, exactly. I mean, Leonard Cohen puts it far better than I could put it, but it is. It’s the affirmation of a faith in life, the way that Leonard Cohen puts it here, and that’s why that word Hallelujah is repeated, I think, so often in that song because it has that resonant for so many millions, if not billions around the world. And absolutely mining the scriptures. You know, Dylan does it. I mean so many of the great poets do it. But Leonard Cohen does it in a particular way, which has got a much more Jewish vision and a much more- Imbued with a Jewish tradition and history of the scriptures and the interpretations of the scriptures more than Dylan and the others. It would be the interpretation I think of Cohen’s.

Dawn, I just got a few here. It’s absolutely Shoah in that poem. “A million candles,” without a doubt. One other song which we didn’t have the time to play was “Dance Me to the End of Love.” And when you listen to it as well, it’s about the burning violin and that’s the reference to the Holocaust, which Leonard Cohen has suggested, that is the image of the burning violin. And it’s a lamentation of moments in the Holocaust. The other thing about the crack and the faith, it’s at the moments of reprieve, the moments of belief, faith can come back. Okay, Dennis?

• No, there’s not none that I have to deal with.

• Okay, Susan. ‘The choir singing 'Hineni’ is sung by the men’s choir.“ Yeah, that’s great. "The synagogue in Montreal, which Leonard Cohen and his grandfather all belonged.”

Yeah. Thanks for that, appreciate it. Katie Lang also Yep. Yeah, there’s so many interpretations. Jeff Buckley has an extraordinary one. I mean, so many artists globally have done.

Rosemary, I take your point, that not all the 200 million who have heard it unnecessarily coming new, maybe some are coming back to listen 3, 4, 5, 10 times. Absolutely. But nevertheless, the access is on a level almost getting close to the Beatles almost, some of the Beatles songs, which is quite extraordinary for Leonard Cohen and his kind of poetry and the kind of song it is. I won’t go into detail, but it’s an extraordinary number of people around the planet.

Okay, Rhonda. Okay. Thanks so much, Anita. Yep. Okay, thank you.

Bene Israel from Micky, the Children of Israel. Marilyn, okay, thank you. Then Marion again. Thanks, Norma. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, we wanted to end with “Hallelujah” for the obvious reasons that we spoke on. All right.

And to Robert as well and Eva. And Sharon. I think that’s it.

• Thank you. Thanks to everybody.

• Everybody, thank you. Dennis, thank you. And Wendy.

• Okay. And stay safe everybody. Bye-bye.

• [David] Ciao.