Messages in Music

I came to an interesting realization while listening and flipping through my iPod. In orthodox Judaism non-Jewish music is not recommended because a lot of powerful influence can come from musical expression. Inappropriate lyrics aside, music has an uncanny ability to set your mood.

In Neve a very funny and clever rabbi, Rabbi Katz, went on a rant about the power of music and how that song on the radio, that reminded you of your ex, starts to play. You go, "aw," as you remember when you first heard that song. Then you smile and remember the good times you both had. Then you wonder what happened! That's when you remember how much of a jerk he was. Then, you get upset and angry. But just as the music brought you into this state of mind, it pulls you out and you go, "Oh! this was such a good song!" I remember when I first heard this song... "aw"... and the vicious cycle starts again. This is an example of the power of music.

While flipping through my music I wondered what moods and what messages I was subliminally subjecting myself to. What surprised me most was not the content or moods. Generally, I know what the messages of my punk-rock, post-hardcore music are and what profanity they potentially use. That is also precisely why I have been listening to more of my softer "let's change the world" reggae and upbeat and positive folk rock. But when I researched my newer, nicer music artists I was genuinely floored!

I had been listening to Christian rock the last few years. Apparently, the daddy issues these girls were screaming and singing about were were not what I was expecting. Y'know, like their paternal father... Instead, they had been singing and pleading with their father in heaven, Jesus. Then I reevaluated my beloved Bob Marley. "Get up stand don't give up the fight. Most people think that great gd will come from the sky... A mighty being is a living gd..." I whimpered, what about my dear old friend, Ben Harper? "The good lord is a good lord with such a good mother, too, and they have blessed me in the good graces of you. "

Oh boy...
Instead of listening to rough rebellious music I had traded it for uplifting, happy, inspiring..... Christian.... music.

Do I still listen to my friends Bob and Ben? You bet I do. However, I gave up some of their songs and a couple bands that were unavoidable. I also monitor my music more carefully. I don't intend to limit myself to only Jewish music (which I may in the future), nevertheless, I want to be cognizant of what messages I listen to and come to believe. We all know music has a strong power to unite and also to divide. But, I want to be aware of which of these messages I'm getting when it's the 6am train ride to the gym!

Music has an awe inspiring ability to help, motivate, aid, and even create whole communities. But I don't want to be mesmerized by something that essentially seeps into my unconscious. I love the mindfulness about becoming religious. No one or thing, including my music, can affect me without my consent! I wonder if everyone else took the moment to really look at what their listening to and really thought about how they felt after listening to it, would they would change it?

Parshas Va'eira: The Plague of Happiness

I wrote this for my school paper, but I liked it so I decided to share:

The Plague of Happiness

Aviva Morris

I was sitting on the couch with my friend from high school this past weekend and we were talking about motivation in life. Luckily, after becoming religious, I remained close with many friends from high school and one had asked me, going along with my whole new “religious shtick”, what motivated me? I said I was once asked if I was happy being miserable. Happy being miserable may seem like a foreign concept, but many people are content staying the way they are: miserable. When I really took a minute to think about if I was truly happy or if I was just content to be miserable, I underwent an internal search for happiness.

With this new found insight and quest, what really hit me like a brick is when I actually found my happiness! I found it by saying Modeh Ani everyday. When we wake up and thank Gd for everything we have, we focus on the positive and are grateful. Gratefulness, to me, is true happiness.

The same day my friend asked me about my motivations and view on happiness, I sat down to read this week’s parsha, Parshas Va’eira. Reading about the plagues, I found the way some of the plagues were carried out a bit curious. In two instances, with the blood and lice, Hashem said to Moshe “tell Aaron.” Why didn’t Hashem tell Moshe to carry out these plagues but, instead, instruct Moshe to tell Aaron to do it? Here is where the theme of gratefulness popped up again.

The river that protected Moshe as an infant was going to be turned to blood. Instead of Moshe inflicting the plague on the river that once saved him, eighty years prior, Hashem commanded Aaron do it instead. In the instance of the lice, Hashem commanded Moshe tell Aaron to strike the dust of the land so that it may turn into lice. This is the same dust of the earth that once hid the Egyptian man that Moshe had killed in Parshas Shemos. Rashi explains that the Torah is telling us that Moshe should not be the one to carry out these plagues in order to display gratitude. Gratitude, mind you, to an inanimate river and dust. How, then, can we not be grateful to the Gd that created us, took us out of Mitzrayim, gave us Torah, and set us free?

There were many things going on in this parsha, but I found that gratefulness was what I really took to heart. We often know to thank Gd and our parent’s for the “big things” like life and substance, but we really need to focus in on the “rivers and dust” in our lives. Then we will, bizrat Hashem, be plagued with happiness by choosing gratefulness over contentment. 

What's a Jew Anyway?

I had an assignment in college to write about the variances among the Jewish population. As I was writing, I realized I was waiting to write a blog on Jews who practice other faiths (such as Buddhism, Christianity, or are atheist) and I figured I'd kill two blogs with one post! I wrote for my assignment:

          I am a ba’alas teshuvah (I became religious) making my observation of the Jewish community a little more varied then most people. In America, I grew up Reform, going to Reform Hebrew schools and youth group events. During middle school, I went to a Conservative shul where I had my bat mitzvah (right of passage into adulthood). In Israel, at age fifteen, I lived and identified amongst the more mizrachi sect of the population (non-religious traditional/religious Zionist). On my return to America, I studied at Hebrew Union College (the Reform rabbinical school in NYC for a high school program), when I decided to drop Reform Judaism and become religious. My senior year of high school I was involved with Chabad (an orthodox-lubavitch sect). Then on my return to Israel, I went to a Haredi (Ultra-orthodox/”black hat”) school with Modern Orthodox students. Honestly, I’d like to say I’ve seen it all, but I have only experienced a fraction of the types of Judaism out there. Judaism is often minimalized as the religious, non-religious, and country of origin, however this is so misleading I cannot begin to explain.  

          According to my unique perspective, I have gotten the chance to share what Judaism is to many “outsiders”. In fact, three days ago, I was telling my Spanish coworker, Jose, who works with me in a kosher supermarket, what Judaism is! I explained it as simply as I could: Judaism is a Nation. We are one nation. We (the Jews) are all descendants from Avraham HaIvri (Abraham, the patriarch) and over time we lost our land and were dispersed. You are Jewish if you are born to a Jewish mother, whether you like it or not. There are Christian Jews, Arab Jews, Muslim Jews, more often then not, Buddhist Jews. There are agnostic and atheist Jews and B”H (Thank Gd) there are plenty of Jewish Jews. There are Black Jews, European Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, and lots and lots of Spanish Jews. There are converts to Judaism and there are Ba’alei Teshuvah (people who return to religious Judaism). Even within the orthodox Jewish population, there are as many “types” of Judaism as there are poskening (ruling on a Jewish law) Rabbis! 

While my summary of who/what Jews are was pretty brief, I decided instead of giving the world another long-drawn out lecture about how I see Judaism, this assignment would do the trick. 

Now that I have hopefully banished the notion that Judaism is a religion (If your still in doubt, why can non-Jewish people believe in Judaism ("the Noahides") and still not be Jewish? Also, if you are Jew, that doesn't mean you practice Judaism, which is the case with a buddhist and Christian Jew or even just a simple Russian or American secular Jew). I believe Judaism is a nation. 

After studying secular Jewish History (on EIE in Israel during 2009), college level European and World histories (in high school), Middle Eastern history (as an independent study my senior year, with the inclusion of a thesis paper),  and finally, after studying Torah and religious Jewish history, I feel I have a very well researched and credible opinion in this matter. If my opinion may not strike someone as "professionally" credible, I beg to reevaluate their judgement due to the amount of specific and detailed research on the topic that I have undertaken. However, I'll state it wether you believe me on the basis of my work or not: Judaism is a very unique type of nation. 

In the words of Winston Churchill, "Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world." His quote does nothing for my thesis (Jews are a nation, not a race or religion), but keep in mind this was during the time of WWII where "racial" and ethnic cleansing were taking place in Germany. I will not fight over semantics. What I intend to say is one of the greatest minds of the past generation agrees that Jews are unique. I want to address that this unique quality comes from what I think makes us a nation. 

Judaism is not a nation in the sense that we are a "pure" ethnic group where where we are all binded by our common ancestry (Abraham). If this were the case, where would there be a place for Middle Eastern Jews, Spanish Jews, European Jews, Black Jews, and Asian Jews? And would that, then, make the descendants such as Ishmael (Arabs) and Esav (Edomites) Jews? This is why I disagree with Mr. Churchill, that we Jews are not a unified and single race.

Even still, we are also not a Nation-State. A nation-state is defined by a ruling government over an ethnically or culturally homogeneous group. Even though we are connected to the land (Canaan) Gd promised Abraham's descendants (in which we only received 400 years later, after the Egyptian exile), Jews would all be "Israelis" if this were the case. Oh, and I'm not talking about 1948 State of Israel, I am talking about 1100 BCE Kingdom of Israel.  Instead, we were bound as a nation in a very different manner and here is where I ask you follow me to my last word. 

I believe that Jews are a Torah-nation. Being an orthodox Jewish Jew, most people would think that this is another religious stint. Nonetheless, logically, Torah is the only thing that binds every single Jew. We live and dedicate ourselves to different countries. We dress differently, eat differently, and all-around live differently. However, if you are a Reform Jew (who believes the Torah was man-made) or an Orthodox Jew (who believes it was Gd-given), you are giving in to the idea that the Torah is integral to our identity. If not, why wouldn't Reform Jews abandon Torah all-together? Those who have abandoned Torah (example: many Germanic Jews during the 19th century) are no longer Jews and have no Jewish descendants. The Jews need Torah (whether you believe it to be True, fable, or complete fiction). Once Torah is lost, so are the Jews. For example, there is a famous quote, by Ha'ad Haam, "More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews." 

Furthering this statement, in an article posted on Ynetnews in November 2011, Melvin Konner attributed the survival of the Jewish nation to two of our mitzvos (commandments), bris milah (circumcision) and taharat ha'mishpacha (family purity laws), which to Konner is consistent according to Darwin's theory of natural selection and evolution. Among the Sabbath, circumcision, and laws concerning family purity (separation between husband and wife during the time of niddah), lays the reason integral to our survival: Torah.

At the end of Konner's article he writes, "I don't think we would have survived as a people without the Torah," he says. "Even though every generation has people like me, who draw away from observing the Torah's mitzvot, it remains the core of the Jewish people... In Israel today you can be completely secular without affecting your Jewish identity. In the Diaspora there is no such thing. In recent generations, secular Judaism has been a way out of Judaism. But three things have allowed the existence of the Jewish people in the past, and in the future: The people, Torah and God."

So what's a Jew anyway? A Jew is born to a Jewish mother (Deuteronomy 7:3-4 - We see that by Gd saying "They will turn your son away", we come to understand three halachot/laws, one of them is the establishment of matirilinial descent.). We also now know what Judaism is NOT. It is not only a religion, it is not just a nation, and it is most definitely not a nation-state comprising of Israel (the land or country). What Judaism is, is a Torah-Nation. One nation united, divided, and defined by Torah 

2013: Why Have One Resolution When You Can Have a Theme?

Good news! The world didn't end! But I guess that is not so surprising for the most of us...
I hope everyone had a happy and safe new year.

While there are so many good topics I want to talk about, I decided to bring up the old and boring idea of a New Year's resolution. While I didn't really celebrate the New Year (I already had one this last September), I did take the chance to think of a theme: Reflection.

Instead of doing what most people do, I did not briefly reflect on this past year and make a resolution to change something in the new year. My "resolution" was literally to "reflect" for 2013. So many times we live life and don't really recognize what is happening to us. I cannot tell you how many weeks have gone by, where shabbos comes and goes and I wonder "What happened to my week?!" I find shabbos is intended to separate the holy from mundane (in a literal sense because shabbos is the day to connect to the high physical and spiritual levels). However, shabbos serves a very practical purpose. It is one day of the week we can't distract ourselves by meaningless t.v. and text-message conversations comprising of "wats^" and "lol" (I think the "wats^" just outdated myself a little, do people still use that?). Instead, we have to be with the people we are with (shocking) and take time to reflect what has actually happened to us in the previous week. But even with shabbos, many people are clever enough to avoid this self-reflection.

In this new year, I want to be more reflective. I want to make each day jam-paced and meaningful, but in a conscience and well-thought out way. I don't want to be burdened with menial tasks, I wanted to be gifted with detailed and specific goals.

In Mesilias Yesharim (Path of the Just) we just learned a section in the second or third chapter that says no one could sin if they just took a second to stop and think. Now, whether you believe in Gd and the idea of sinning or not, it is a good thing to keep in mind. If people would just take a second to stop and think about what they are doing, I think the world would be a much brighter, more meaningful, more productive, happier place.

I hope 2013, and every year after that, is filled with positive vibes, meaningfulness, and a sense of peace that comes with reflection and conscience effort.