A Spiel in September

As we prepare for our autumal holiday season, we can take a moment to look back at this past spring's Purim spiel, performed on March 11, 2017.

The title of this year's Purim spiel is The Festival of Lots, and it is an original work. Any other congregations or Jewish groups out there who are interested in using it for their next Purim celebration, you can contact us via email: adasemuno at gmail.com.

The video recording is available on YouTube and right here on our congregational blog. Be warned that this is not a professionally produced video, just raw footage, with concomitant technical difficulties. And this is strictly an amateur performance, but we hope you'll agree it's one that has a lot of heart and soul.





Our last two Purims spiels can also be screened here on our blog, via the following posts from days gone by: A Purim Spiel Before Hanukkah (for last year's performance of Shalom Shushan), and A Summer Purim Spiel and A Winter Purim Spiel (for the two performances of The Schnook of Esther).  

The scripts of these two are available online for all to read via the following link: Shalom Shushan and The Schnook of Esther. Congregations and other groups can read it first, and are on the honor system regarding donations to our social action fund if they decide to use it. The script for The Festival of Lots will be made available online in the near future.

A Purim Spiel Before Hanukkah

With hopes of warming your heart during these cold days of winter, and looking forward to springtime, we are pleased to share with you this recording of this year's Purim spiel performance, held on March 23, 2016. 

The title of this year's Purim spiel is Shalom Shushan, and it is an original work. Any other congregations or Jewish groups out there who are interested in using it for their next Purim celebration, you can contact us via email: adasemuno at gmail.com.

The script is available online for all to read via the following link: Shalom Shushan. Last year's script is also available online: The Schnook of Esther. Congregations and other groups can read it first, and are on the honor system regarding donations to our social action fund if they decide to use it.

As for the video recording, it is available on YouTube, and right here on the official blog of Congregation Adas Emuno:





This is raw footage, not a professional production, and there are some technical difficulties, and admittedly the players ought not to quit their day jobs. But it is a lot of fun to watch, and it's clear that it was a lot of fun to put on. And in case you missed them, or want to watch them again, here are two performances of last year's Purim spiel: A Summer Purim Spiel and A Winter Purim Spiel.   

Houdini Whodunit

It's been a while since we've shared one of Adas Emuno President Lance Strate's op-ed pieces from the Jewish Standard, so here now is one that was published in their June 24th issue, and then appeared on his Jewish Standard Times of Israel blog on June 30th. That post was updated to reflect the next to last episode of the program he discusses, and this version is further updated to reflect the season finale:

My son was about 8 or 9 when we had our first family outing to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey.

As I recall, it was his first time in the amusement park, and my first time as well. And I was pleased to discover, soon after entering, an attraction called Houdini’s Great Escape. It paled in comparison to anything that can be found at one of Disney’s or Universal’s theme parks, but I was happy to have the opportunity to introduce my son to the great Jewish showman Harry Houdini.

Houdini was a household name when I was growing up, immediately recognizable as the world-famous escape artist of a bygone era. The fact that Houdini was Jewish also was well known, especially within the Jewish community.

Houdini’s fame persisted long after his death in 1926, at the age of 52, but it began to fade in the waning years of the 20th century. I wonder how many millennials have heard of him these days. For that reason, I applaud Six Flags for keeping his memory alive. I am particularly grateful to all those who protested when Great Adventure closed the ride in 2008, and convinced Six Flags to bring it back in 2011.

We bought my son a hamster about a month or two after our trip to the amusement park, and I asked him what name he wanted to give to his pet. He answered, “Harry.” I smiled and said, “So you want to name him after Harry Houdini?” “No,” he replied. “After Harry Potter.”

I immediately realized that Houdini’s Great Escape made a much greater impression on me than it did on him, and that there was no competing with the young adult novels by J. K. Rowling, and even more so with the Warner Bros. film adaptations, with their amazing special effects, which made magic seem real. This amounts to a bit of a reversal, as stage magicians produced some of the first special effects to appear in early cinema.

Houdini himself started out as an illusionist performing in vaudeville, before achieving widespread fame by specializing as an escapologist. He also starred in a few silent films between 1906 and 1923, but he did not enjoy the same success on the screen as he did in live performance.

Significantly, Houdini was devoted to stage magic as a profession, and led the Society of American Magicians as president of that organization for almost a decade, his tenure cut short by his untimely death. The society pays for the maintenance and care of Houdini’s grave site, which is in the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens. The monument displays both his stage name, Houdini, and his actually family name, Weiss; he was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, the son of a rabbi, and was only about 4 years old when his family emigrated to the United States. That’s when Erik Weisz was changed to the German version, Erich Weiss.

Though Houdini died almost 90 years ago, his name recently has been resurrected on television with the airing of Houdini & Doyle, a series launched last spring on Fox. It’s based on the actual friendship between the great escapologist and Arthur Conan Doyle, the British author best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. While drawing on bits and pieces of historical fact, essentially the series is fictional and full of anachronisms, blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction in ways that have become quite common in recent decades. The central fiction is that Houdini, who is performing in London, teams up with Doyle to solve mysteries that baffle the police.

In this new series, Michael Weston (née Michael Rubinstein, grandson of Arthur Rubinstein) became the most recent of at least a dozen actors to have portrayed Harry Houdini. His predecessors include Tony Curtis, Harvey Keitel, Norman Mailer, and Adrien Brody. In this role, Weston looks Jewish, but not in a way that might be deemed stereotypical or particularly overt. His speech does not feature any obvious form of Jewish (or Hungarian) accent, although it does strike me as very similar to the kinds of voices I hear at my congregation. In short, in this series, the fact that Houdini is Jewish is downplayed significantly—but it is not entirely absent.

Houdini & Doyle is a TV version of the buddy film genre, a type of narrative especially commonplace in American popular culture, no doubt due to the diversity of American society. That’s because it depends on strange bedfellows, or if you prefer Neil Simon to Will Shakespeare, an odd couple team-up. The buddies often contrast opposing qualities—rich and poor, white and black, male and female, young and old, professional and amateur, and so on.

The great French anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, argues that a culture’s myths are ways of symbolizing significant polar oppositions, and scholars analyzing popular culture, such as Arthur Asa Berger, have applied this approach to film, television, and other media. Looking at Houdini & Doyle through this lens can be quite revealing.

To begin, Houdini is American and Doyle is British, Houdini is ethnic while Doyle is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASPs are an ethnicity, of course, but traditionally they are presented as non-ethnic in American popular culture), and Houdini is an American immigrant while Doyle is native to Britain. (The show is set in London.) Houdini’s background is not emphasized in the first few episodes, but in the third episode, “In Manus Dei,” he falls ill and his mother, who has accompanied him on his travels and speaks with a noticeable accent, gives him chicken soup as a cure. Her character, Houdini’s own devotion to her, and the insecurity associated with being an immigrant all are featured more prominently in episode 5, “The Curse of Korzha,” and the fact that Houdini is Jewish is discussed briefly in episode 6, “The Monsters of Nethermoor.”

On the one hand, it is quite positive that a Jewish-American immigrant can serve as a symbol of an American in general. On the other hand, Houdini’s Jewishness mainly is reflected in his being a victim of prejudice, as he reveals in episode 6. This also makes him a champion of tolerance, as he defends another character facing discrimination and scapegoating, which is commendable. But in this respect, there is no contrast with Doyle, who is sympathetic, albeit revealed as never having been the victim of bias, while the third main character, Constable Adelaide Stratton, Scotland Yard’s first policewoman (an anachronism), also is subjected to significant prejudice and therefore is in favor of tolerance.

Having viewed seven out of the 10 episodes that comprise the first season of the program, a joint British, Canadian, and American production, I would have wanted to see Houdini’s Jewishness reflect something more than ethnicity and open-mindedness. I would have liked it to reflect as well some aspect of his religious heritage. But of course that would undercut his role as a symbol of Americans in general.

Other contrasts come into play. Houdini is a famous and self-promoting entertainer, while Doyle enjoys the quieter esteem accorded as an author, one somewhat embarrassed by the popularity of his Sherlock Holmes stories. Houdini’s success makes him relatively affluent and his brashness marks him as nouveau riche, while Doyle is the model of upper-middle-class propriety, as befits a physician. (That’s his day job.) There is a bit of a contrast between low and high culture, between the sensationalism of the popular performer and the reserve of the man of letters, which also maps onto the egalitarianism of American society and the elitism of the British (Doyle eventually receives a knighthood). It’s also the contrast between the rags-to-riches story of the ethnic immigrant and the conservative narrative of old money. Additionally, there is a contrast between Houdini’s physicality, as an escape artist and also as a fighter, and Doyle’s cerebral quality.

The major opposition on which the program turns, however, is between Houdini as a skeptic and rationalist and Doyle as a believer and spiritualist. While the belief that it is possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead is age-old—King Saul speaks to the ghost of Samuel in the Tanach—the spiritualism movement began in the 19th century. It was inspired in large part by the ethereal (but decidedly earthly) form of communication introduced by the invention of the telegraph, and later by messages sent over the air by radio.

Doyle actually was an ardent believer in spiritualism. He believed in it so strongly that this difference of opinion eventually brought his friendship with Houdini to an end. And Houdini actually was firmly committed to debunking anyone claiming to have psychic powers or the ability to communicate with the dead, invariably revealing them as scam artists using the same methods as stage magicians.

Houdini & Doyle draws on these historic facts to set up the program’s main opposition. It’s similar to The X-Files, except that Gillian Anderson’s Dr. Dana Scully was the skeptic and David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder was the believer. Doyle’s scientific background as a physician does come into play when he solves mysteries, but it does not prevent him from believing in psychic phenomena. Interestingly, Houdini’s and Doyle’s roles are reversed in “The Monsters of Nethermoor,” but only because the unearthly phenomenon being investigated is, in fact, alien beings, and Houdini is willing to believe in the scientific notion that life on other planets is possible.

Houdini, then, comes across as something of a 20th century Spinoza, a modern secular humanist, in contrast to Doyle’s apparent superstition. And the episodes clearly favor science over spiritualism, while portraying both buddies as sympathetic characters. Here too, however, I would wish for something more than rejection of belief on Houdini’s part. I’d have liked some positive expression of Jewish faith, its emphasis on ethics, even a touch of true spirituality.

Still, I applaud the show’s creators for bringing the spirit of Houdini back to life and with renewed vigor. This doesn’t seem like the kind of program that will gain much of an audience, or even make it to a second season. But escaping cancellation may just be Houdini’s greatest trick of all.

First Addendum

Two additional episodes have aired since I wrote this op-ed, one after it was published on June 24th. At the end of episode 8, “Strigoi,” which features their contemporary, Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, Houdini discovers that his mother has passed away. This and other matters prompts a trip across the Atlantic in episode 9, “Necromanteion” (the title referring to an invention of Thomas Edison's, who appears in the episode, that is supposed to allow communication with the dead via radio waves).

The episode includes a scene of a Jewish funeral. Incredibly, Houdini is shown at the grave site minus any form of head covering, and walks out on the ritual, criticizing the solemnity of the proceedings. While the intent is to show that Houdini is suppressing his feelings of grief, it also resonates with his rejection of superstition in an unfortunate manner. The episode ends with his return to his mother’s grave to recite a Hebrew prayer, alone and therefore not as part of the Jewish community. This no doubt reinforces his connection to Doyle and Stratton, but at the cost of a positive portrayal of Jewish community, and one of the most essential functions of any religious tradition.  

Second Addendum  

In the final episode of the season, "The Pall of LaPier," Houdini receives spiritual advice from a native American that he finds comforting. This is a common trope in American popular culture, the "noble savage" as a source of wisdom and superior spiritual connection in contrast to us sophisticated moderns, but once again, this appears in the absence of any link to Houdini's own faith, any interaction with a rabbi, and almost not acknowledgement of Jewish mourning rituals.  And just to be clear, the problem is not in this one series, but the fact that this is typical of the way that Jewish characters, whether historical or fictional, are portrayed in our popular culture.

Questioning the Torah

We are pleased to share with you the following reflections provided by Adas Emuno congregant Ludwik Kowalski sent in on December 19th:

What a coincidence! Two events, our rabbi's play, in Temple Emanu-El, and publication of an article by Roger Price, Is This Really The Torah God Gave Moses At Sinai?, took place on the same day (December 18, 2014). The main hero of the play, the ancient Rabbi Elisha, struggled with questions that founders of Reform Judaism addressed in the 19th century. Elisha was excommunicated long before Spinoza was declared a heretic, and before modern science was created by Galileo and Newton.

Price's article is full of questions about the Torah, which "asserts a pre-history and a purpose of the ancient Judahite kingdom to which contemporary Jews trace their emotional and often actual genetic origin." Each of these intellectual contributions—the play and the article—addresses topics relevant to our weekly Torah study.

For more on Rabbi Schwartz's theatrical adaptation of As A Driven Leaf, see our previous post, Hanukkah and Heresy. Congregation Adas Emuno was well-represented at the reading at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan, and the play itself was very well received, a genuine hit! Now all that's needed is an angel to sponsor it for Broadway!


 

Telling the Story of Passover

There are many ways to fulfill the commandment to tell the story of the exodus from Egypt, as we do during the Passover Seder.  We typically, and traditionally, tell the story in words, but here are two alternatives.  This first uses clips from a television miniseries and music by Vangelis:





And the second example is one we shared last year, and is well worth repeating, an amazing, artistic shadow play by the Hungarian performance group, Attraction Black Light Theatre:





As we prepare to celebrate Shabbat Chol Hamoed Pesach, the sabbath that falls during the week-long celebration of Passover, we wish you a Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!

Seasons of Love

To follow up on Rabbi Schwartz's Yom Kippur Sermon for 5773 posted yesterday, here is the music video for "Seasons of Love," written by the Jewish composer and playwright Jonathan Larson, from the hit musical Rent:

And here are the lyrics:

ALL
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love? Measure in love

Seasons of love. Seasons of love

JOANNE
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes!
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Journeys to plan.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure the life
Of a woman or a man?

COLLINS
In truths that she learned,
Or in times that he cried.
In bridges he burned,
Or the way that she died.

ALL
It's time now to sing out,
Tho' the story never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends
Remember the love!
Remember the love!
Seasons of love!

JOANNE(while ALL sing)
Oh you got to got to
Remember the love!
You know that love is a gift from up above
Share love, give love spread love
Measure measure your life in love.

 And here's the full version featuring the original Broadway cast:



Jonathan Larson received three Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Rent, all posthumous. Originally from White Plains, New York, and a graduate of Adelphi University in Garden City, Larson based Rent on his experience living together with several roommates in an unheated loft in lower Manhattan.  

Larson passed away from a heart ailment in 1996, the day before the show opened off-Broadway, and two weeks shy of his 36th birthday.  Rent went on to become the ninth longest running show in the history of Broadway, and was made into a feature film in 2005.

The Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation was set up by his family friends in his memory, and the Jonathan Larson Grants are now administered by the American Theatre Wing to provide financial support for individual creative theatre artists.

How do you measure the life of a woman or man? Indeed, is there a better answer than, in love?

Rabbi Schwartz's Sermon for Yom Kippur 5773

SEASONS OF LOVE

YOM KIPPUR, 5773

RABBI BARRY L. SCHWARTZ

Surely you remember the Broadway musical Rent, and that marvelous song, “Seasons of Love”?

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

So asked Jonathan Larson, the young, Jewish playwright and composer of Rent, who tragically passed away of a heart ailment on the eve of the show’s Broadway debut.

How do we measure a year? A perfectly appropriate question on these, the High Holy Days.

When we gather in this place, at this time, at the ancient turning of the Jewish year, at the holy hour which culminates the ten days of soul searching and introspection, we are inescapably confronted with the passage of time, and the consequences of our acts.

We have started counting a new Jewish year. Five thousand seven hundred and seventy three years, since the Creation of the world… give or take a few billion.

But more importantly, how do we judge the year gone by?

The New Year is a time of counting, but even more it is a time of accounting.

No sooner do we mark the New Year on Rosh Hashanah then we are told to spend the next ten days dwelling on the previous one.

How, then, do we measure a year?

Larson continues,

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?

And then he concludes,

How about love?
Measure in love.
Seasons of love.

What a challenge!

To measure in love. To judge the year gone by our triumphs and failures… of love.

There are a myriad of ways to “number our days,” in the phrase of the Psalmist, but what of the measure of love?

By the standard of professional accomplishment, I may have had an exceptional year, a mediocre year, a sub-par year… But what about love?

By the standard of economic gain, I may have had an exceptional year, a mediocre year, a sub-par year… But what about love?

By so many standards of stature and affluence, I may have scaled the heights, or experienced the depths… But what about love?

The Hebrew word for love, ahavah, like the English, conveys multiple meanings depending on the context.

What do we really mean by love?

Consider the help of the Classical Greek, which employs three terms:

Eros—romantic love.
Philos—fraternal love.
Agape—spiritual love.

The Torah implies this range of relationships:

Genesis teaches us about eros, the romantic love between husband and wife, or the lack thereof. From Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah and Rachel.

So too, these sacred stories portray the depths of philos, the fraternal love, or the lack thereof, between siblings. Cain and Abel. Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers.

The great commandments of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy speak of agape, spiritual love:

Love your neighbor as yourself. 

Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 

Love the Lord your God, with all you heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.

The Torah ideal, like the Broadway song, is that love is the measure of our relationships.

And while that may start with our spouse or children, and goes on to our parents, siblings, and extended family, its radiates out to our friends, neighbors, colleagues, employees… And even to the one we do not know or do not like.

I am always struck by the response Martin Luther King, Jr, gave when asked how he felt about an arch segregationist senator who opposed his every move:

I do not like Senator Eastland from Mississippi, but I must learn to love him.

And so on this Yom Kippur, when we turn and take a reckoning of our triumphs and failures of love over the past year, what is the accounting?

Do we emerge a loving spouse?

A loving parent? Brother? Sister? Son? Daughter?

Do we emerge as a loving friend, colleague, boss?

Part of our nature pulls in that direction. But part does not:

Was our incessant egotism checked by abundant altruism? 

Was our recurrent selfishness balanced by regular selflessness? 

Was our angry demand for justice eased by a desire for compassion? 

Was our impulse to dominate tempered by a willingness to cooperate? 

Was our stiff necked stubbornness relaxed by a readiness to compromise? 

Was our proclivity toward indifference mitigated by a yearning for reconciliation?

When we extend the embrace of love beyond our home, to our community, and even our workplace, what is the accounting?

Did I treat my colleague as I would treat myself? 

Did I accord the basic level of respect and dignity to my nemesis even in my hour of frustration or vexation? 

Did I rise to the challenge of loving the needy? The vulnerable? The marginalized? The distressed? The stranger I do not know?

The Torah commands this love of the stranger thirty-six times, because “you know the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Empathy born of history.

What has happened to our collective memory? Did I (do we) measure up?

I don’t know about you, but I'm concerned. If I weigh the triumphs of love, with the failures of love, I'm not so happy with the balance.

The shortcomings hurt. The disappointments hurt. The lost opportunities hurt.

They hurt us, and they hurt our loved ones.

And the closer these loved ones are to us, the more it hurts.

Why is it that we make the greatest mistakes with the people we care about the most?

But the Jewish New Year comes to say: We can begin again.

Keep a vision of the good before you, and begin again.

Profess what you did right, confess what you did wrong, and begin again.

Own up to your mistakes and begin again.

Embrace repentance and reconciliation and begin again.

Start tipping those scales in the right direction, right now.

Because your life depends on it, and because the world, which is the sum of all those individual scales, depends on it.

Every week we talk about love when we recite the second prayer after the Barechu, the prayer that comes just before the Shema.

The striking expression that begins the prayer is Ahavat Olam, unending love, or perhaps, unconditional love.

Ahavat olam… ahavtah: “You have loved us eternally.”

Such love, our tradition teaches, characterizes God’s relationship to us.

And we are taught, imitatio Dei, to imitate God.

Such love, our tradition urges, should characterize our relationship with others.

Love that is unceasingly. Unrequited. Unconditional.

The Torah puts forth the radical notion that as God loves us flaws and all, that is the way we should guide our lives.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro has written a beautiful prayer based on the traditional Ahavat Olam of the Siddur. As I read it now, think about how you might be more open to both receiving, and giving, of unconditional love.

We are loved by an unending love.
We are embraced by arms that find us
Even when we are hidden from ourselves. 

We are touched by fingers that soothe us
Even when we are too proud for soothing.
We are counseled by voices that guide us
Even when we are too embittered to hear.
We are loved by an unending love. 

We are supported by hands that uplift us
Even in the midst of a fall.
We are urged on by eyes that meet us
Even when we are too week for meeting.
We are loved by an unending love. 

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled
Ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
Ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles,
We are loved by an unending love.

Now I would love to conclude on this pure and poetic note, but I need to add one other point: Love, even unconditional love, is complicated.

As I was completing this sermon, [now here comes my confession], I was watching the speeches at the Republican National Convention. Lo and behold, wouldn’t you know, that Ann Romney starts off talking about love.

This is what she said:

I want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us, that one great thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good and the greatest solace in our dark hours. Tonight I want to talk about love.

She goes on to talk about the importance of unconditional love, and who could disagree with that?

Well our governor, Chris Christie, for one, who followed her speech with his. Christie stands up and says,

And the greatest lesson that my mom ever taught me was this one: She told me there would be a time in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected.

Christie goes on to say that love without respect is fleeting and that people in general, and leaders in particular, should stop wanting to always be loved and start making the hard choices they constantly avoid.

So who is right?

Well, I think Anne is right that unconditional love is the greatest thing.

But I think that the governor is making the case for what we often call tough love.

Are the two in conflict? I think not. Unconditional love is not necessarily uncritical love.

As parents, for example, don’t we often criticize and even punish our children for their own good, to help them grow up in the right way? It’s not that we don’t love them.

You children out there, let me repeat that: It’s not that we don’t love you.

This is precisely what the prophets of the Bible said repeatedly about God’s relationship to Israel.

Listen to the famous words of Isaiah (54:7-8):

For a little while I forsook you,
But with vast love I will bring you back.
In slight anger, for a moment,
I hid My face from you,
But with kindness everlasting
I will take you back in love.

So now, at this holy time, I conclude by asking:

Can we create a new season of love?

Can we turn to our loved ones and say:

Even though I see your flaws… I love you. 

Even though I know your secrets… I love you. 

Even though you may have ignored me… I love you. 

Even though you may have disappointed me, slighted me, rejected me, hurt me… I love you. 

Even though you are not the easiest partner… I love you. 

Even though you are not the most understanding parent… I love you. 

Even though you are not the most respectful child… I love you. 

And I… I am a flawed partner, I am a faulty parent, I am an imperfect child, sibling, friend, or fellow… But I ask you to love me the same.

Paul wrote famously:

Love is patient; love is kind. It is not jealous nor boastful nor proud; never selfish nor quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs, does not gloat over another’s sins, but delights in the truth. Love never gives up; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, its endurance.

Which brings me back to a song:

Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year? 

How about love?

[see our next post for more on Jonathan Larson and Rent, and to listen to "Seasons of Love"]

Marvin Hamlisch

Situated in Bergen County, just over the George Washington Bridge, and only a few miles away from New York City's Broadway theater district, Congregation Adas Emuno joins with so many others all around the world in saying rest in peace to Jewish-American composer and songwriter Marvin Hamlisch, 1944-2012.

Here is a photo montage tribute featuring his best known composition, "The Way We Were," sung by none other than Barbra Streisand:

The Los Angeles Times reported that Streisand was devastated upon hearing the news.  Here's an excerpt from the article:

Streisand is dedicating her latest CD, "Release Me," to Hamlisch. The CD is set for a September release and will feature a photo of the two that was shot New Year’s Eve 1993.

Streisand said that she and Hamlisch were like two peas in a pod from the moment they met nearly 50 years ago. 

“When I was with Marvin it felt like I was home,” she said. “We just hit it off and we became friends. We were so alike -- a passion for work and music.”

He was a man who loved food, laughter and the New York Yankees, she recalled. On their concert tours, she said, “Marvin had this little gizmo that he showed me that gave him the most recent baseball scores.”

Hamlisch also eased Streisand's nerves about returning to the concert stage in 1993 after 27 years. “I had sung for fundraisers,” she said. “When I decided to go back, it had to be with Marvin. Marvin got me through all of that fear.”

Streisand, the producer-writer-director, hired Hamlisch to score her 1996 film, “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” And he performed at her wedding to actor James Brolin in her Malibu home in 1998.

“The wedding was put together in 2 1/2 weeks,” she said. “He was rehearsing at a nearby school and we were talking on the phone because I was doing preparations for the wedding.”

She last saw Hamlisch in November at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Gala.
“I hadn’t seen him in a while,” she said. “I was worried about him because he didn’t look well. He seemed very tired. I sat him down next to me.”

Streisand, who opens a concert tour in October at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, is planning a tribute to Hamlisch for the concert. 

“He was the kindest, most thoughtful, generous human being,” she said.

And like any good friend, she said, “he never forgot my birthday.”

To get a sense of the man himself, take a look at this rare footage of Marvin Hamlisch doing schtick and singing with Cantor Simon Spiro, including a new version of Irving Berlin's "Anything You Can Do":

And here are some notes about the video from the write-up on YouTube:

0:13 -- Tote Board: Actually an enormous video screen so that the people in the back and balcony seating can see better.
0:32 -- Holiday: This concert took place in the month of September, so the holiday Marvin is referring to is Rosh Hashana.
0:41 -- Purim: Usually a less-than-huge holiday, Purim at Toronto's Beth Tzedec Congregation is famously celebrated with its city-wide full-scale major musical productions each year
3:16 -- Martin: Earlier in the concert, Simon & Martin did a very funny bit in which Simon kept getting Marvin's name wrong
5:26 -- Adon Olam: While Marvin is known for composing many hits, Simon's most noted composition is "Adon Olam", which was a #1 hit in Israel and is performed today at synagogues throughout the world.
6:33 -- Sedaka: Neil Sedaka had done a Beth Tzedec concert with Simon shortly before Marvin's.
6:41 -- That's where we met: Simon & Marvin first met when they performed together in London's "Live At Her Majesty's" in the 1990s.
6:52 -- You weren't: These insults that they exchange are not real insults. They were written by lyricist Aliza Spiro as part of the song patter
7:31 -- Page turn: That's just so that Marvin can follow the chart. He is improvising on piano while Simon improvises vocally
7:52 -- Sixty jingles: In his native England, Simon actually wrote and/or sang for well over 100 commercial jingles
9:06 -- Marvin's hand: Marvin not only agreed to perform this song but threw himself into it wholeheartedly. By the end, you can see that he is Mr. Song-and-Dance. What a wonderful man. He will be missed!!

Funeral and visitation information are available on his official website, http://www.marvinhamlisch.com, along with his a wealth of information on his life and works. Truly, the lights on Broadway have grown a little dimmer with his passing.

Purim Glee

Were you with us this past Purim for out annual Purim Spiel?  If so, you got to see A Very Glee Megillah, written by Norman Roth and performed by the Adas Emuno Amatuer Ensemble.

The performance (and Purim service) was held on the evening of March 7, 2012, which corresponds to Adar 13, 5772 (actually the eve of Adar 14).

So, in case you missed it and want to see what you missed, or in case you saw it and want to enjoy the experience again (and again and again), or perhaps, in case you were in it and want to see how you did and what it looked like from the audience's point of view, here goes:

You can also view this video directly on YouTube, under the title of A Very Glee Megillah Purim Spiel at Adas Emuno 2012 (and while you're there, give us a like if you don't mind, leave us a comment if you are so inclined, and feel free to add us to your playlist or share the video via email or social media).  And while you're at, come visit our YouTube channel, Adas Emuno Sights and Sounds, and subscribe if you care to.

I think you can see that, if nothing else, we excel in enthusiasm, and spirit, and fun!  And we are not without our hidden talents (and don't say they're very hidden indeed, you'll hurt our feelings).  And at nearly an hour in length, this Purim Spiel is indeed, quite the Megillah!

A Zissen Pesach

On behalf of Congregation Adas Emuno, we wish you a Zissen Pesach, a sweet Passover, and we celebrate with the following amazing video from Attraction Black Light Theatre:









This was a special performance for Pesach held at Cancun last year.  This video, and several others, can be found on the Attraction Black Light Theatre channel on YouTube.  And you can read more about  talented Hungarian performance group on their website:  attr.action.  And I think we can expect to hear, and see more from this them in the future! Maybe even next year, in Jerusalem?