Torah

“The world is a songwriter’s farm,” I once heard someone say. When searching for song concepts and all the eloquent and vivid descriptions it may entail, sometimes you don’t have to look too far.  There are singers and songwriters who even sit in coffee shops and discreetly listen to conversations while jotting down certain phrases. They’re listening for: 1) what people are experiencing, 2) how people are describing it. They’re looking to utilize the underrated power of everyday language.

Time is a prominent theme of Pesach, but it expresses itself in a unique and somewhat puzzling manner. On Pesach, we are commanded to eat matzah (unleavened bread), while eating chametz (leavened bread) is absolutely forbidden (Sh’mos 12:15). This is an incredibly strict prohibition; the punishment for eating chametz is kareis (spiritual excision). This seems extreme, as the difference between matzah and chametz can come down to a matter of seconds. This means that a single second can decide a person’s spiritual reality, determining whether one performed a mitzvah or violated the most severe of prohibitions. Why is time so central to Pesach, and how can a single second of time have such significant implications?

I recently heard a successful composer say that a song is done when none of it bothers you. Not only do I adore that sentiment and personally abide by that school of thought, it’s a perfect foundation for what I was already intending to write about.

In 2019, one of our kids got sick with something that was difficult to diagnose. After weeks of doctor visits, trips to the ER, and a hospital stay, we got a diagnosis of exclusion, which means they’d eliminated every possible disease and condition they thought it might have been and said, “It’s probably x.” The condition they diagnosed her as (probably) having is, itself, an umbrella diagnosis for kids who present with similar symptoms but who also don’t have a clear diagnosis of something else.

Many of the big Jewish Music (JM) releases from the ‘80s and ‘90s featured songs composed by Yossi Green. Yossi dominated mainstream JM in that era as a composer (and occasionally had other roles, as well), making an immense impact on dozens of projects. Many of the most legendary albums that helped catapult singers’ careers were replete with Yossi’s contributions.

“Do you think other Jewish people will be there?”

I cringed at my daughter’s loud question on the not-quite-empty train.