People
Lubavitcher
Lubavitcher
Date: 2000/03/02
Subject: Alte Rebbe's Nigun WAS: Tzadik - New Japan, Radical Jewish
Culture
To:
poz...@aol.com (POZUGA) wrote
[...]
>I have a CD on the Radical Jewish series that I recommend heartily:
Oren
>Ambarchi and Robbie Avenaim's "Der Alte Rebbe's Niggum". It's a mix of
>power-trio like guitar jams with sampled contempo classical bits. Lots
of
>oriental-sounding influences as well, and some spoken word passages in
Hebrew.
>It's really well done, and I don't want to hype it too much but I
thought the
>guitar-drum parts reminded me of Guru Guru (ca. Kanguru) or
Fushitsusha, and
>the oriental moods of the more serious Sun City Girls material. Give
it a shot
I agree it is a good release.
The first track, however, sounds to me as if it were a
descendant of some James Blood Ulmer/Music Revelation
Ensemble. There is an interesting jarring of rhythm between
the guitars and drums.
We played some tracks on community radio here
(http://www.ozemail.com.au/~bschwarz/fretless.htm).
Oren Ambarchi has a new (in the last month) solo guitar CD,
but I haven't been able to hear it. I would certainly be
interested in opinions on that.
-Andrew
--
This posting is not merely my opinion. It is the official position
of my employer, the Australian National University.
Andrew Torda, Research School of Chemistry, ANU, ACT 0200, Australia
andrew...@anu.edu.au http://www.rsc.anu.edu.au/~torda
Lubavitcher
NEW CD BY ANDY STATMAN, "THE GREATEST JEWISH CLARINETIST OF HIS
GENERATION"
Contact: Berel Cohen
Sales Manager
bco...@mayonmedia.com
(718) 812-5505
1546 Union St.
Brooklyn, NY 11213
April 6, 2005 -- For more than thirty years, internationally acclaimed
clarinet and mandolin virtuoso Andy Statman has surprised
discriminating fans by constantly breaking new ground in multiple
styles and mixed genres. His new CD -- entitled "Wisdom, Understanding,
Knowledge," the English equivalent of the acronym "Chabad" -- is
predictably unpredictable. It is not exactly klezmer, jazz, or the
avant-garde American Roots music for which he is best known. Nor is it
the brash, extroverted Jewish music we are used to hearing these days.
Mr. Statman's latest creative effort might be described as the
instrumental equivalent of real Chassidic singing at its best -- but
performed in an eclectic musical language of his own invention. Hailed
as "the greatest Jewish clarinetist of his generation" by the Jerusalem
Post, Statman takes us on a musical journey into the heart of Chassidic
melody. The result is one of the most profound and expressive examples
of Jewish instrumental music on record.
It is no accident that Andy Statman became a devotee of Chassidic
music. For the Chassidim, melody has always been a path of divine
service -- a way to connect with G-d. This vision of music as a
spiritual journey has guided Statman throughout his career,
particularly as he began to move away from traditional klezmer to
explore the wellsprings of Jewish music. "All Chassidic niggunim
(melodies) are spiritual workshops," Statman observes. "They are meant
to introduce the person to his own neshamah (soul) and help him to go
deeper and deeper to discover the Source of his existence." In the CD's
tastefully designed and informative booklet, Andy describes his early
discovery of the melodies of Chabad and other Chassidic musical
traditions as milestones along the way; other high points were his
performances during the 1980s in the presence of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,
of righteous memory, as well as before other revered Chassidic masters
in Israel and America.
For those searching for something deeper in Jewish music, this CD
should be a milestone, too. A Mayon Media production, "Wisdom,
Understanding, Knowledge" is available in music stores, bookstores,
Judaica stores, and online at www.MayonMedia.com and at Amazon.com
Reb Moshe
by Kelly Hartog, Staff Writer
He's into rap, hip-hop, reggae - and religion. He's not a
Christian rocker; he's a Chasidic reggae/hip-hop musician.
Matisyahu is the artist formerly known as Mathew Miller - until he
found God, Lubavitch-style, almost five years ago.
The 25-year-old certainly beats to his own drummer. Over the last
several years he's played packed houses, garnering a following with
Jews and non-Jews. He's a regular on the New York club circuit, and
always takes to the stage in the requisite black suit and white shirt.
And he gets his groove on with a kippah on his head and his tzitzit
flying.
On April 10, Matisyahu will work his magic in Los Angeles at a sold-out
concert at the University of Judaism.
There are a handful of Orthodox musicians who use their Judaism in
their lyrics, but Matisyahu seems to be one of the few who has managed
to appeal to both Jewish and secular audiences. After Matisyahu
performed at a secular nightclub in Iowa in January, an online magazine
review said, "The crowd responded equally to his religious and
secular utterances. Matisyahu certainly made converts of a few from the
crowd, but whether it was to reggae or to Judaism is impossible to
say."
Matisyahu doesn't appear to find anything incongruous about his
hip-hop Chasidism. The soft-spoken young artist said it's what has
made him so successful.
"There's never really been a religious Jewish voice that modern-day
Jews and non-Jews alike can relate to," he said.
The Lubavitch-style tradition, he said, is something others who have
taken the same path can connect with: the heritage, the religion.
"While this is the focal point of my life, at the same time I'm
still a person that grew up with American culture and listening to
American music, and I combine the two."
The lyrics used in traditional reggae music, he says, originate from
the same place as his own work: the Torah. "The Rastafarians base a
lot of their on the Psalms and King David."
In "King Without A Crown" Matisyahu sings:
What's this feeling?
My love will rip a hole in the ceiling
Givin' myself to you from the essence of my being
Sing to my God all these songs of love and healing
Want moshiach now so it's time we start revealing
Many of his other songs speak of the yearning to connect with God and
change the world. "Having one God is not just a Jewish concept," he
said. "Everyone can connect with that."
While growing up, Matisyahu was heavily into all forms of alternative
music, particularly reggae.
"A person's life is in phases," he said. "When you go through a
new phase, you don't kill the old you or forget who you were or where
you came from."
Mathew Miller came from White Plains, N.Y., where he grew up in a
traditional Jewish household. His main Jewish education was
twice-weekly Hebrew school classes, for which he came close to being
expelled because of his disruptive influence.
A restless teenager with little interest in his studies, he turned to
music, finding solace in beat-box rhythms, hip-hop and reggae.
Like many youth searching for something, Miller's journey from
Matthew to Matisyahu was an evolution and included a life-altering
11th-grade trip to Colorado, where the vast landscape made him realize
there was a God.
Nonetheless, he dropped out of high school, turned to drugs and
alcohol, and drifted aimlessly. But a trip to Jerusalem, and a chance
Shabbat evening service at the Carlebach Shul on New York's Upper
West Side, eventually put Matisyahu onto the path he now treads today.
He calls Crown Heights home.
The Chasidic melodies, raucous singing and the flower-power vibe of Reb
Shlomo Carlebach's legacy, helped Matisyahu delve deeper into both
his musical and Jewish soul, ultimately finding peace, solace and
meaning in his life in the Lubavitch world.
Today he focuses on spreading the message of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe
- with his music. "He said we're supposed to take the things that
we do and tell the world about the moshiach, and about God."
At his concerts, he uses psalms, quotes from the Torah and anything
else to fulfill the commandment to be "a light unto the nations"
- albeit with a heavy Jamaican tone.
How does he reconcile Orthodox Judaism with performing on stage -
particularly when he himself has said he has to avert his eyes at some
clubs because the women are not dressed modestly enough?
"Those who know me know that as an artist this is my way of
fulfilling my role and doing tikkun olam," he said, referring to the
Hebrew for "healing the world."
One of his greatest supporters is his wife. A little-publicized fact,
Matisyahu was married last August to an NYU film student. The couple is
expecting their first child later this year.
In the meantime, Matisyahu is busy touring the country.
"I hope that people will enjoy my concerts and come away with a sense
of truth and pride in who they are and where they come from," he
said. "And everybody can hopefully learn and discover what their
mission is here."
The 8 p.m. show has sold out. A 10:30 p.m. show has been added on
Sunday, April 10 at the UJ. Tickets are $25 each.
Reb Moshe
Sat Apr 16, 5:17 PM ET
By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA, AP Science Writer
He stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue like the Beatles or Marilyn Monroe.
He could've been president of Israel or played violin at Carnegie Hall,
but he was too busy thinking. His musings on God, love and the meaning
of life grace our greeting cards and day-timers. Fifty years after his
death, his shock of white hair and droopy mustache still symbolize
genius. Who else could it be but Albert Einstein?
Einstein remains the foremost scientist of the modern era. Looking back
2,400 years, only Newton, Galileo and Aristotle were his equals.
Around the world, universities and academies are celebrating the 100th
anniversary of Einstein's "miracle year" when he published five
scientific papers in 1905 that fundamentally changed our grasp of
space, time, light and matter. Only he could top himself about a decade
later with his theory of general relativity.
Born in the era of horse-drawn carriages, his ideas launched a dazzling
technological revolution that has generated more change in a century
than in the previous two millennia.
Computers, satellites, telecommunication, lasers, television and
nuclear power all owe their invention to ways in which Einstein peeled
back the veneer of the observable world to expose a stranger and more
complicated reality underneath.
And, he launched an intellectual quest for a single coherent law that
governs the universe. Einstein said such a unified super-theory of
everything, still unwritten, would enable us to "read the mind of God."
"We are a different race of people than we were a century ago," says
astrophysicist Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History,
"utterly and completely different, because of Einstein."
Yet there is more, and it is why Einstein transcends mere genius and
has become our culture's grandfatherly icon.
He escaped Hitler's Germany and devoted the rest of his life to
humanitarian and pacifist causes with an authority unmatched by any
scientist today, or even most politicians and religious leaders.
He used his celebrity to speak out against fascism, racial prejudice
and the McCarthy hearings. His FBI file ran 1,400 pages.
His letters reveal a tumultuous personal life - married twice and
indifferent toward his children while obsessed with physics. Yet he
charmed lovers and admirers with poetry and sailboat outings. Friends
and neighbors fiercely protected his privacy.
And, yes, he was eccentric. With hair like that, how could he not be?
He famously stuck his tongue out at photographers - that is, when he
wasn't wearing a Native American war bonnet or some other get-up.
Cartoonists loved him.
He never learned to drive. He would walk home from his office at
Princeton University, sockless and submerged in the pursuit of the
"eternal riddle," letting his umbrella rattle against the bars of an
iron fence. If his umbrella skipped a bar, he would go back to the
beginning of the fence and start over.
In those solitary moments, he unconsciously demonstrated the traits -
intense concentration, disregard for fashion and innate playfulness -
that would rescue him when, inevitably, he would be interrupted by both
presidents and passers-by to explain the universe.
"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that
is something," Einstein once said, "wearing stripes with plaid comes
easy."
___
Today, there are curiously few statues of the man. The most notable is
a 12-foot bronze at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington
depicting the wrinkled old sage gazing at his famous Emc2 formula.
Tourists climb into his lap for snapshots.
Rolf Sinclair despises it. "It's one of the worst pieces of public
sculpture," says the retired National Science Foundation physics
program officer. "It makes him look like one of the Three Stooges
reading his horoscope."
The Einstein that Sinclair and others would prefer immortalized is
circa 1905, when he was 26 and about to rock the world.
By day, he worked in the Swiss patent office in Bern. He called it his
"cobbler's job," but for seven years he analyzed a stream of inventions
dealing with railroad timekeeping and other matters of precision that
raised cosmic possibilities in his fertile mind.
After hours, he would work furiously on his "thought experiments," that
smashed through the limits of established physics.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge," Einstein said. "The
important thing is to not stop questioning."
In 1905, he published five landmark papers without footnotes or
citations. It marked the beginning of an unrivaled, two-decade
intellectual burst.
Here is a brief chronology of his miracle year:
March, 1905: Conventional physics described light as a wave and could
not explain how light can knock electrons off metal. Einstein showed
that light is made of tiny packets of energy, or quanta, that can
behave like individual particles, too.
This duality is the basis of quantum theory, a pillar of modern physics
so paradoxical that even Einstein didn't entirely buy into it. His
explanation of this "photoelectric effect" won him the Nobel prize in
1921.
April: Based on cafe conversations over tea, Einstein submits a paper
that determined the size of sugar molecules by calculating their
diffusion in the liquid.
May: He shows how particles (like pollen) that appear to be
independently moving in water are being jostled by atoms in water that
are moving chaotically. Known as Brownian motion, Einstein's
calculations confirmed the atom's existence and by extension, the
makeup of chemical elements.
June: Einstein's paper on "special relativity" separates him from the
mainstream physics crowd. Newton considered gravity to be absolute -
mass attracts mass. It's what makes gas and dust form stars and debris
form planets.
But Einstein sought to explain anomalies in this rule. Scientists had
concluded that light was just one of many kinds of electromagnetic
waves moving through an unseen medium they called ether, and the speed
of light is always the same.
Einstein recalled a teenage daydream of racing a light beam. According
to the physics of his day, if he moved as fast as the light, then the
beam would be stationary in space.
Einstein said the speed of light is constant at 186,282 miles per
second. But it will appear different depending on where you are and how
fast you are traveling.
For example, clocks on orbiting satellites run a bit slower because the
satellites are orbiting at 17,000 mph. They have programs that help
them align with clocks on Earth.
Or, suppose you were to "witness" a star exploding into a supernova.
The explosion occurred thousands of years ago, but it has taken that
long for the light to reach you here.
November: Einstein publishes an extension of special relativity
regarding the conversion of mass into energy, noting that the "mass of
a body is a measure of its energy content." In 1907, he abbreviated it
to what would become science's most famous equation: The amount of
energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, or Emc2.
C2 is such a huge number that even small amounts of mass pack big
power.
This became the theoretical basis for both atomic explosions and atomic
energy.
"Each of these papers is a landmark in physics," said University of
Maryland physicist S. James Gates. "And yet all of his work in 1905 is
a prelude to his greatest composition - the theory of general
relativity."
Special relativity was incomplete because it did not deal with gravity.
To Newton, gravity was a constant, absolute force. Drop an apple and it
hits the ground. A planet traces a curved orbit because the sun's
gravity tugs at the planet.
In Einstein's relative world, matter warps the time and space around
it. So, the sun's mass dents and distorts the space-time fabric,
curving the planet's trajectory.
He reasoned that even particles of light, which have very tiny mass,
should be affected in this way.
In 1919, astronomers watching a solar eclipse observed the light from a
distant star being deflected by the darkening sun's mass - by a few
hundredths of a millimeter.
General relativity laid the foundation for all kinds of discoveries,
such as the Big Bang, the expansion of the universe and black holes.
Yet relativity is both so profound and confounding that even other
physicists have trouble grasping its nuances.
Einstein described relativity this way: "Put your hand on a hot stove
for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an
hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
___
In a lifetime that coincided with Rudolph Valentino and Clark Gable,
it's hard to imagine Einstein as a lady's man. With that hair? And
those rumpled clothes?
He had a passionate personality that drew admirers. But physics always
was his first love and that was the trouble.
The young Einstein's indifferent, even ruthless, nature is evident in
his dealings with his first wife, Mileva Maric. She and Einstein were
students at the renowned Swiss National Polytechnic in Zurich.
In effusive letters and poetry, he called her Dollie and himself
Johnny.
She gave birth to an out-of-wedlock daughter at her parents' home in
Hungary. The baby either died or was adopted. Einstein never saw the
child.
The episode ended Mileva's career before it began. She appears to have
been a sounding board for his ideas, but historians doubt she was a
true collaborator. They married in 1902 and Mileva bore two sons, but
their passion soured as Einstein's reputation grew. He complained that
he had no time for marital "chatter."
He and Mileva separated in 1914.
"You make sure ... that I receive my three meals regularly in my room,"
he wrote in his cold list of conditions. "You are neither to expect
intimacy nor to reproach me in any way."
But eight years later, he gave her the $32,000 purse from his Nobel
Prize for physics.
Einstein had an affair with his German cousin, Elsa Lowenthal, and she
nursed him back to health when he collapsed from nervous exhaustion in
1917. They married two years later, but she soon found herself
tolerating his girlfriends. They emigrated to Princeton, where she died
in 1936.
Until his own death from heart disease on April 18, 1955, relatives and
his secretary kept house for Einstein at 112 Mercer Street. He also
developed attachments to several women who shared his love of music,
sailing and world affairs.
One was an alleged Soviet spy, Margarita Konenkova, a Russian emigre
married to a Greenwich Village sculptor.
Another was Johanna Fantova. She and her husband had met the scientist
in Prague's intellectual circles that included the novelist Franz
Kafka. She emigrated to Princeton alone in 1939. She cut Einstein's
hair and he telephoned several times a week. In her diary, she included
this charming line of verse from the physicist:
"Exhausted from a silence long/ This is to show you clear how strong/
The thoughts of you will always sit/ Up in my brain's little attic."
As an old man, he revealed to Fantova a melancholy side.
"The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians
say that I am a physicist," he said. "I am a completely isolated man
and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really
know me."
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Lubavitcher
Diary of a Chief Rabbi Published in London Jewish News & Jewish
Telegraph
- March 2000
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
It happened on our honeymoon almost thirty years ago. Elaine and I had
decided to go to Switzerland. We'd never been there before, and we were
excited by the prospect of mountains, clean air and vigorous climbs. We
arrived amid brilliant sunshine, and the scenery was as glorious as we
had hoped. The next morning, though, when we looked out of the window,
the mountains had disappeared under a blanket of low cloud. For the
next few days we went on our walks undeterred, even though the mist was
thick and visibility almost zero. We took one safety precaution. As we
walked, we sang Habad songs. Why? Because one thing we knew: if a Jew
is lost, Lubavitch will find them!
This week, Lubavitch U.K. held a dinner to celebrate its fortieth
anniversary - and what a remarkable organisation it has been. Recently,
a Jewish newspaper held a competition to identify the Jewish newsmaker
of the century. By a landslide, victory went to the late Lubavitcher
Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn. The other candidates were
world-famous figures - builders of the State of Israel like David Ben
Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, and shapers of the modern mind such as
Einstein and Freud. But the verdict was right. One would have to travel
a long way back to find a comparable figure who had made such an impact
on Jewish communities throughout the world.
Long before the word 'globalisation' had entered our vocabulary, the
Rebbe created a truly global organisation, sending emissaries
throughout the world to rekindle the flame of Jewish faith. The result
is that wherever you least expect to find a Jewish presence, you are
almost certain to discover that Lubavitch has got there ahead of you.
In Katmandu, of all places, Habad organise the biggest seder in the
world, with some three thousand participants. Back in the early
seventies I used to say that I didn't know who would be the first Jew
to set foot on the moon, but I was sure of who the second would be: A
Lubavitcher Hassid running to put tefillin on the first.
In those days, Elaine and I loved Habad because they were the first
group to go out to students, in the days when there were no Jewish
university chaplains outside London. That is how we came to know and
admire the people who have led Lubavitch from then to now: figures like
Rabbis Nahman Sudak, Fyvish Vogel and Shmuel Lew who are among the
heroes of our community. For us they represented a wholly new face of
Judaism, spiritual, even mystical, and yet informal, approachable,
savvy, relaxed. They were serious, but they were also fun. They taught
us what it was to "serve God with joy". The movement which began life
two hundred and fifty years ago among the villages of Eastern Europe
turned out to hold the secret of touching the heart of Jews in a wholly
different age and cultural environment.
I have often reflected on what made the Rebbe and the movement he led
so different. The first thing, obviously, was that he cared. No other
Jewish leader took the whole of the Jewish people as his constituency,
without conditions or qualifications. He wanted every Jew, however
remote geographically or spiritually, to feel that they were valued,
that that within Jewish life there was a place of honour for them. How
odd that this should be so rare, yet it is. The Rebbe virtually
invented the concept of "outreach" and it changed the Jewish world.
Today there are many organisations that practice it, but Lubavitch was
the first and the most successful.
The second I discovered in my first audience with the Rebbe. I was a
second-year student at university at the time, travelling around
America in my summer vacation. Wherever I went, people spoke in glowing
terms about the Rebbe. I knew I had to meet him, and an appointment was
eventually arranged. I began by asking the Rebbe a series of questions
about faith, which he answered in that quiet, courteous, softly-spoken
manner he had. But within a few minutes he had turned the conversation
around. He started interviewing me. What was I doing to strengthen
Jewish life at university? What could be done to make the Jewish
society at Cambridge stronger? Looking back on that conversation, which
eventually changed my life, I realised that people had profoundly
misunderstood him. They thought that the Rebbe was interested in
creating followers. He wasn't. He was interested in creating leaders.
That was his greatness. He believed in people more than they believed
in themselves.
The third was that he knew how to see crisis as opportunity. The world
from which he came had been destroyed in the Holocaust. His new home,
the United States, was a country that until then had dissolved Jewish
identity by the sheer power of its embrace. It was, as they used to say
in those days, a treifener medinah, a land that turned Jews into
gentiles in three generations. Virtually alone among his
contemporaries, he saw the possibility of using American culture as a
medium for new forms of Jewish activity. Mitzvah campaigns, menorahs in
public places, the use of cable television to spread the word - time
and again Lubavitch were innovators, using modern means to convey a
traditional message. Perhaps it takes a mystic to see opportunities no
one else notices. One way or another, the Rebbe realised that the
secularity of the modern world conceals a deep yearning for
spirituality, and he knew how to address it.
He is no longer with us, but the challenge he issued remains. Weizmann
and Ben Gurion helped to rebuild the Jewish state. The Rebbe set out to
rebuild the Jewish people. It was an heroic task, the right one at the
right time, and its unfinished business is his legacy to us. Lubavitch
has its critics - which Jewish organisation does not? But few can deny
the transformation it has brought about in Jewish life.
Lubavitcher
Imagine yourself in the scientific hot spot of the twentieth century.
At the vortex of a revolution in science such as never had occurred
before, and more radical than anything that has occurred since. A small
group of scientists, most of them under thirty, are rewriting the laws
of the cosmos. Time and space have already been demoted from their
absolute primacy, and now cause and effect are on the block.
The universe, once a collection of globs of matter following neat,
well-defined paths has become suddenly much more mysterious. It is
beginning to look more like an idea than a thing, more like a process
than a collection of objects.
You're at the University of Berlin from 1919 until 1932, where Max
Planck, Ernst Schrodinger, Albert Einstein and other giants of modern
physics hold lecturing posts. Nihls Bohr and his flock of protégés
visit regularly for heated debates. One of those visitors is a young
scientist named Erwin Heisenberg who has only recently extended
Einstein's revolution past the point Einstein himself is willing to
go. But the younger scientists are a dominant force after the attrition
of the First World War, and their ideas swiftly gain the upper hand.
In the midst of this revolution, just as the storm has reached its
climax, enters a brilliant student in his mid-twenties, forced to flee
Stalin's Russia for his counter-revolutionary activities. He is a
gifted mathematician with an astounding memory, well versed in
philosophy and science. He also is fluent in the entire gamut of
classic Jewish thought and he is a mystic. He studies in the department
of science until 1932, after which he and many of his teachers are
forced to flee Germany.
In many years from now, he will come the Rebbe of Lubavitch.
To better understand the Rebbe's concept of science, a little history
comes in useful. Baseing myself on his letters on the topic, this is
how I believe the Rebbe might tell it:
Beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, scientists
began to be concerned about their rigor in separating physics from
metaphysics. Physics is a study of those phenomena that can be
observed, measured and verified. Metaphysics is anything beyond that
realm. George Mach, in particular, taught that nothing that cannot be
verified in the laboratory should enter into scientific theory.
In the bag along with all the other unverifiable concepts went two
rather central ones: Absolute time and absolute space. Later, cause and
effect were challenged, as well. This is how it happened:
Until Albert Einstein, scientists painted their theories upon the
background of these canvasses. All activity of the cosmos was assumed
to be occurring within this realm, and so science had to account for
them, as well.
Einstein's breakthrough was to realize that absolute time and space
were, as well, outside the realm of science. We measure space in terms
of how far one thing is from another, We measure time in terms of the
movement of objects in space. Whenever we measure, however we measure,
it can only be in relative terms. But the framework of that movement,
the absolute background, that, he understood, is metaphysics.
Contrary to what most populists and even many naïve scientists write,
neither Einstein nor any of his colleagues believed they had done away
with absolute time and space. They simply realized that to be real
scientists, they needed to bow their heads and submit to the reality
that these are things that are out of their ballpark. As, Herbert
Courant, a great mathematician of that era, wrote, it was the
realization "that science is not about comprehending 'the thing
itself,' of knowing the 'ultimate truth,' of unraveling the
innermost essence of the world that was one of the most fruitful turns
in modern thinking."
Eventually, the revolution Einstein spearheaded escaped beyond borders
he was willing to cross. In 1928, Werner Heisenberg, at the
encouragement of his teacher, Nihls Bohr, published a paper describing
his "Principle of Uncertainty." In it, he described why it was
physically impossible for the human observer to verify the simultaneous
velocity and position of an electron. If this could not be verified, he
argued, then it too was outside the realm of scientific theory. Science
was now relegated to concern itself with probabilities rather than
certainties. The solid chain of predictable cause and effect that ran
through all scientific thought would have to be loosened to make way
for mathematical matrixes that allowed for almost anything to happen.
Of course, every scientist must have some frame of reference to an
underlying entity, a "thing in itself" that is not an object of direct
physical observation. So scientists develop cosmologies, concepts of
what the universe really is, as a background to explain that which can
be observed. But the old materialist cosmology, previously accepted as
indisputable fact, was forever gone. The very concept of matter, of
tiny petrified globs of indivisibly dense primordial stuff, just
didn't seem to fit into anyone's observations. Slowly, scientists
became aware that it never did. All along, it was no more than a
secular catechism, an assertion of faith.
A prime scientist and philosopher of the time, James Jeans, remarked
that the universe had begun to look "much more like a great thought
than like a great machine." Later, physicist David Bohm settled for
defining matter as, "that which unfolds, whatever the medium may be."
Karl Popper summed it up saying that in the 20th century, "matter has
transcended itself."
Ironically, it was that old materialist catechism that had been the
principal ammunition against the teachings of the ancient sages. By
abandoning faith, science had opened the doors to explore faith. Nobody
could say any longer that Science had relieved G-d of His duties. In
fact, with a universe looking like a thought, a decent position for Him
had just opened up.
So, what really lies under the ocean of observable phenomena? What
causes all this to be? What is time? What is space? While the scientist
has a right to present his conceptions of that which is not observable,
he has stepped out of the bounds of science in doing so. He may as well
be a plumber discussing medicine. True, the plumber may need medicine,
but that doesn't make him an authority.
It turns out the only one way we can know "what is there" is if What Is
There comes and tells us Itself. This is the Kaballa, a revelation into
the human mind of the inner cosmos and beyond. That's why Kaballa
means 'received'-it is a wisdom that cannot be attained through
intellectual pursuit alone. It must be received from Above. It starts
with the first intellectual being on earth, whose mind was tuned to the
heavens. It was charged with greater depth at Sinai, and came into the
realm of human comprehension through the Kaballists and Chassidic
mystics of the past five hundred years.
To whom the Rebbe was heir. And a scientist to boot.
http://www.therebbe.com/profile/subPages/Scientist&Mystic.html
Lubavitcher
Hasidic Reggae Star Matisyahu Gaining Fans and Proving to Be More Than
Just a Novelty Act
By NEKESA MUMBI
The Associated Press
Apr. 19, 2005 - In the insular, Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Crown
Heights in Brooklyn, members of the Hasidic religious group rarely
mingle with outsiders.
So it's understandable that a young Hasidic woman grows alarmed when
she happens by an unusual scene a solemn Hasidic man being photographed
by a secular group of people. But the woman breaks out into a smile
when she learns the name of the man before the camera.
"Oh, Matisyahu," she says. "Everybody knows who he is."
Well, not yet. But the Hasidic reggae star yes, reggae star is gaining
fans, respect and attention for his unusual hybrid of music and
religion.
At a recent sold-out concert at a New York City club, Matisyahu emerged
on the stage sporting a long beard, glasses and the black pants, white
shirt and yarmulke worn by male Hasids. Standing against a backdrop
that featured the star of David, he looked more rabbi than reggae
artist.
But as his band began to play intoxicating rhythms, Matisyahu began to
groove with the beat, singing and chanting in a Caribbean lilt so
convincing one might think he was island-born. Halfway through the
first song, the crowd which included Jewish kids, Birkenstock-type
music fanatics and black faces was jumping up and down to the beat with
Matisyahu, who held his hand to his head so his yarmulke wouldn't fall
off.
"There is a lot of very good in the music in the music business, and
there is a lot of very bad, and it is very rare to find something truly
great and extraordinary. We have found that in Matisyahu," says Larry
Miller, founder of Or Music, which released Matisyahu's "Live at
Stubb's" album on Tuesday with jdub records, which originally signed
the singer. (Matisyahu's first album, "Shake Off the Dust ... Arise,"
was released last year.)
Extraordinary may be the best way to describe how Matthew Miller
transformed into Matisyahu (Hebrew for Matthew).
Though Miller was Jewish, he was not born into the ultraconservative
Jewish branch of Hasidism. Growing up in the New York City suburb of
White Plains, Miller resisted any specific religious doctrine.
By the time he was a teen, he was a slacking off in school and
squabbling with his parents. At age 17, he left home to follow jambands
like Phish and search for a purpose in life. Even then, however, he
says he knew there was a spiritual being that guided him: "I would
always feel that God was with me."
Eventually, he finished his high school studies at a wilderness school
in Oregon for troubled teens, returned to New York and studied arts at
the New School University. It was around that time he also became
entranced with the music of reggae stars like Capelton, Sizzla and Buju
Banton.
"That's what really inspired me the most, the message and the method
that I connected to," says Matisyahu, 25. "The message was like some
kind of connecting to your roots, going against the mainstream flow,
searching for truth, believing in God and the unity of the world and
the universe, and just a certain strength, a certain passion and a
certain fire."
He began playing in bands and making demos. But he also became
entranced with Judaism, specifically the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of
Hasidism. Eventually, he abandoned the secular lifestyle and became a
member, and studied for two years in a yeshiva. At that time, he
stopped listening to music, concentrated on his studies and got
married. But after he finished his studies, the desire to perform
music, specifically reggae, remained.
Still, he had hurdles before he could embark on a singing career
specifically, his religious advisers, who were bewildered by his plans.
"The rabbis at first were like, 'You're in yeshiva why would you want
to go to these clubs and go to these bars and go back to this lifestyle
that you used to be a part of?'" he remembers them saying.
But a performance before a group of young Hasidic boys at a community
center won his rabbis over.
"I closed my eyes and sang the song, and afterwards I looked up, the
two rabbis from the yeshiva were right next to me, and I looked up at
them and they like had huge smiles," he says. "Ever since then, they
got it, and the whole community is totally supportive."
He's since gained plenty of attention for his late-night TV
performances on shows like "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and even reggae
aficionados have given him the seal of authenticity he's the only white
act slated to perform at an annual reggae event this summer on New
York's Randalls Island.
"His style, you can't put it into a single category. He falls into like
three different categories," says Joel Chin, the director of A&R at VP
Records, which has made reggae stars out of artists like Sean Paul and
Beenie Man. "I would love to hear some more stuff from him to hear how
diverse he can be."
Besides his unique delivery which combines hip-hop beat-boxing and
reggae chanting and singing Matisyahu's music references spirituality
and Judaism heavily. One of his song titles is "Tzama L'cha Nafshi
(Psalm 63:2-3)."
But Miller says he's not trying to convert anyone he just wants people
to feel the same spiritual high that his religion, and his music, has
given him.
"I'm just trying to put my music out there, and at the end of the day,
I hope people take away from it what I took away from music growing up,
that it gave me a sense of strength and hope and peace, and stability
and inspiration."
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Lubavitcher
An unorthodox mix:
rap and religion
Monday, April 18th, 2005
Any listener who hasn't been warned about the singer Matisyahu has the
same reaction when they first see him.
"They laugh," says the singer. "They think it must be a joke."
After all, it's not every day you see a guy in the black suit of a
Hasid singing and rapping over swaying reggae melodies, goosed by a
hip-hop beat.
"This is my path," the singer explains. "It's how my influences
unfolded."
The strangest part is how naturally those influences inform each other,
mostly due to Matisyahu's mellifluous croon. A 25-year-old follower of
the Lubavitch sect, Matisyahu sounds most like Anthony Kiedis of the
Red Hot Chili Peppers - if he'd had better training. You can hear the
results on his second CD, "Live at Stubbs," which hits stores today.
Matisyahu's first CD, "Shake Off the Dust ... Arise," came out last
year and earned the singer sellout shows at B.B. King's, a 45-date U.S.
tour and appearances on the Carson Daly and Jimmy Kimmel shows. This
past Sunday, he filled Irving Plaza.
Matisyahu's mix of sounds and cultures isn't as odd as it first seems.
Some reggae Rastafarians consider themselves to be the lost tribe of
Israel. And the link between Jewish and African-American music dates
back to the dawn of pop culture, when George Gershwin and Irving Berlin
took influence from black spirituals.
The singer grew up Matthew Miller in White Plains to parents who had
what he calls "a 'take it or leave it' attitude about the religious
aspect of Judaism."
Initially, his parents felt rejected when the teenaged Matthew grew a
beard, changed his name to Matisyahu and became deeply religious. He
wound up moving to Crown Heights and studying the Torah.
"It gave me a way to integrate spirituality into my life," he says. "It
gave it structure."
At the same time, the singer maintained his adolescent love of Bob
Marley, which he married to his growing affection for the Hasidic
wordless vocal style known as "niggun." To flesh out the amalgam,
Matisyahu formed a band several years ago. They developed a strong
audience in New York, some from inside the Jewish community, but more
from without. Last year he signed with Or Music, a Sony-BMG distributed
label that earlier inked Los Lonely Boys.
Matisyahu remains a fan of some pop acts, most notably the Flaming Lips
and Elliott Smith. But he's mystified by popular rap.
"It's the complete opposite of holiness," he explains. "It's like
selling drugs. It tells people, 'If you have this, you'll be happy.'
And their view of women! They say Hasidim are sexist!"
By contrast, Matisyahu sees his music as "a way to connect to the
truth."
"At least," he says, "it's what I see as the truth anyway."