Bo: ... But Do THEY Get It??

One final thought about "The Music Man"! In addition to reminding you that there are still two more shows left; Saturday night, February 1st @ 7:30 p.m., and Sunday afternoon, February 2nd @ 2:00 p.m. After this post, I'll move on to other

topics, I promise! You see, both our Torah portion and our synagogue musical remind us about something quite essential. For whom is all this taking place? An entire story is unfolding - whether about slaves in Egypt or townsfolk in River City, IA - and the plot is developing and developing, progressing towards... something! Where is this all going, what is the ultimate meaning and message, and who, exactly, is supposed to learn it?? Perhaps not surprisingly, in both cases (and something for us to consider in our own lives...), the answer is: The Children.

Our parashah lays out the final three plagues inflicted on Pharaoh and the Egyptians, culminating in Pharaoh's long-awaited surrender, and the miraculous freeing of the Israelite slaves.
Towards the end of this week's text, we see a curious little repetition, hidden among the dramatic, culminating events. God commands Moses to instruct the people, and everyone prepares for the terrifying final plague; the death of the firstborn. And then, Exodus, chapter 12:26-27 adds, "And when your children ask you, 'what do you mean by this rite?', you shall say: It is a Passover sacrifice to Adonai..." In other words, you are performing a ritual that must be codified into practice, and it isn't going to mean much if you don't explain it to the next generation (and the next one, and the next one, etc., etc...), so they can keep the traditions alive! As if this point wasn't clear enough, a chapter later, in 13:8 AND in 13:14, the Torah TWICE reiterates that the kids are gonna wanna know, and you better be ready to explain all this stuff to them!! (I'm paraphrasing, of course.)

What, then, does all this have to do with Harold Hill and his "River City Kids' Band"? As I watched rehearsal after rehearsal, and more recently performance after performance, I thought a lot about this question. And, related to my post from last week, I continue to try and reconcile the peculiar climax of the show, where Professor Hill does not, in fact, get his just desserts. It occurred to me, that
ultimately the story isn't about Harold at all. The beauty of the final scene - slightly hidden behind humor and a dramatic resolution - is that the quality of the music produced by this band was never actually the point at all. When the children march on stage, ready to defend their beloved band leader, and they squawk and squeak out some horrendous notes, we finally realize what the adults were really looking for. They wanted their kids to care, and they wanted them to work towards something. And most important of all, parents are, and should be, proud of their children no matter what, and should love them unconditionally.

We get blinded (ninth-plague-pun-intended...) by the high drama of regents clashing with prophets and Divinities, or the chase scene of townsfolk frantically searching for this charlatan who has stolen their money.

Our attention is pulled away, but in both cases, we are ultimately brought back to the central point: The heart of the matter is, what will you pass on to your children? How will you show them what you *really* care about, and why it should matter to them. And at the same time, do you also see what matters to them, and can you truly see them for who they are and love them no matter what? I'll conclude by sharing that one of my absolute favorite moments in the show, is that my character, Mayor Shinn, delivers the very last line of the play. Having been a skeptic and a critic throughout the performance, and seemingly having become obsessed with locating Harold Hill's credentials, his final words reveal what has REALLY concerned him all along. "Mrs. Paroo! That's Winthrop!!" he exclaims... because all he ever really wanted, was to see a 10-year old playing a coronet, and loving it.

And... SCENE!


Images in this blog post are once again from the Ohev Players' production of The Music Man:
1. Children of River City, waving to the Wells Fargo wagon
2. Zaneeta and Gracie Shinn, the mayor's fabulous daughters!! :-)
3. The most adorable band members imaginable
4. Mayor Shinn, watching Winthrop play away on that coronet...

Radio Interview: On Courageous Conversations (CMPradio.net)

Click here (or link below) to watch/listen to my conversation with Jean-Pierre Brice, host of CMPradio.net; an internet radio station in Chester, PA. Modeled on the FUSE gatherings that Ohev Shalom has participated in for over six years, JP and I discuss race, community relationships, white privilege, stereotypes, uncomfortable subject matters, and how our two communities can - and should - be working towards common goals. Comments/feedback welcome!

https://www.facebook.com/cmpradio.net/videos/554556758472387/

Va-Eira: Hidden Meanings... Unless Ya Know the Territory (Spoiler Alerts!)

Yes, I'm still stuck on "The Music Man." In fact, we've REALLY kicked into high-gear now, with Opening Night just around the corner, on January 25th! But something

else has also evolved and grown over the time I've spent with this musical. When I was first introduced to it, and really started to understand the plot, I was - in all honesty - kind of shocked. A con-man swindles an entire town, he is discovered, and (spoiler alert) they let him off the hook. Ummm... what kind of message is this play teaching us all, anyway?!?! In speaking to a couple of my fellow cast members, we all agreed that Harold Hill did not, in fact, get what was coming to him, and the ending was unsatisfactory (from a morality and justice point-of-view). And then, wouldn't you know it - Jeely Kly and Ye Gods* - I've come to view the whole play in a new light.

There is, by the way, a fair amount of hidden meaning in our Torah portion this week too. Yes, the very FIRST thing God says in our parashah (or I'll eat hay with the horse!*) is that God never revealed the name "Adonai" to Abraham, Isaac, or

Jacob. Moses is hearing it for the very first time. This reading also divulges the names of Moses' parents and siblings, when these had all previously been anonymous characters. God and Moses hatch a plan to get the Israelites out of Egypt, while Pharaoh deceives Moses and Aaron each time he promises to let them go. Furthermore, watching plagues rain down on the Egyptians might not leave us feeling all that great about the means being employed to justify the ends. But sometimes you have to look a LITTLE BIT closer to discover the underlying meaning. And then, once you see it, why, it's staring at you, plain as a Quaker on his day off!*

I discovered two quotes in The Music Man that I love. They're subtle, and they fly by quickly, so you could be forgiven for missing them. But so it is with many, MANY things in life; the moral, the resolution, the central principle we are meant to learn does NOT come at the very end, right before the "Happily Ever After." It is instead

found somewhere else along the journey. Harold Hill, our spellbinding cymbal-salesman* of a protagonist, tries to coax Marian (the Librarian) to meet him at a romantic spot. When she gets cold feet and tries to stall, she tells him "some other time," which certainly we've all used on countless occasions in our lives. Hill responds: "My dear librarian, pile up enough ‘some other time’s and you'll find you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays." I found this to be such a compelling and thought-provoking way to put it. Setting aside the context of the show itself, this idea is really quite essential. We delay, and postpone, and put off, and drag our feet. But it may indeed amount to a lot of "empty yesterdays," if we aren't too careful. I think this is wise advice for all of us to consider.

And then Marian offers us important insight as well. Regardless of what Hill promised to deliver, what ACTUALLY happened? Was it all smoke-and-mirrors

from a swindlin' two-bit thimble rigger*?? When all the dust and the bluster settles down, Marian points out that the promise of lights, flags, colors, and cymbals WERE delivered, but in something more enduring than a few music lessons. It came, instead, "in the way every kid in this town walked around here the last three weeks, and looked and acted... and the parents, too." Even in our Torah portion, Moses and Aaron get very focused on the "parlor tricks" with snake-sticks and leprosy-hands that they can use to compel Pharaoh. But that stuff doesn't actually matter! The real shift comes in Moses' self-confidence, in the people believing they can be the masters of their own destiny, and in seizing the task of becoming their own agents of change.

I hope I haven't given away too much of the musical's plot. Seeing it is the REAL experience anyway. But I invite us all to take these lessons to heart. It's not about a trombone or a shofar, but about challenging ourselves to evolve and grow, and to seize every opportunity to live in the "Now." Real action is what matters; talk is cheep-cheep-cheep*.

Images in this blog post are all from our upcoming Music Man performance:
1. "Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, cheep, cheep, cheep!"
2. "ONE Grecian Urn!!"
3. "Think, kids... THINK!"
4. 76 Trombones; final pose!


*I couldn't help throwing some Music Man lingo into the blog this week. If a phrase is confusing to you, it's probably a quote from the show. It's meant as an inside-nod to the cast, but if you come see our production, you too can get all the references! :-)

Shemot: What You're Hoping to Get Out of That Trombone

As you are probably aware - or should be by now - the Ohev Players are about to return to our synagogue stage, with a terrific production of Meredith Willson's "The Music Man." We're performing four shows on 1/25, 1/26, 2/1, and 2/2, and tickets are on sale
now. You may also be familiar with my own love of theater, and how much I am inspired to see people of all ages and stages of life come together to make this show happen. It is a true community-builder... and also, the music is great! In truth, I never really knew much about this particular show. I'd heard the name, but didn't know any of the music, and had *zero* sense of the plot. Playing a central character, the Mayor of River City, has certainly taught me a lot. And I thought I would dedicate a series of three blog posts (starting now) to some of the things I've learned, and hopefully you'll find them interesting as well.

I must say, I was already intrigued the moment I opened the script. The last page of the book's introduction, after the list of scenes but before "Act One" has even begun, the script presents a short note from Meredith Willson, who wrote the book, lyrics, and music for the show. I keep thinking about that statement,
both for my portrayal of Mayor George Shinn, but also as an important lesson about relationships in life. The letter reads as follows: "Dear Director: The Music Man was intended to be a Valentine and not a caricature. Please do not let the actors - particularly Zaneeta, Mayor Shinn and Mrs. Shinn, who takes herself quite seriously - mug or reach for comedy effect... The humor of this piece depends upon its technical faithfulness to the real small-town Iowans of 1912 who certainly did not think they were funny at all." I was captivated by this paragraph for a few different reasons.

First of all, humor is in everything. You don't need a laugh track or a punchline to be funny, and finding humor in something doesn't have to mean
you are mocking it. I feel this way about the Torah all the time. In this week's Torah portion, for example, there is an incredibly dark scene, where Pharaoh has commanded that all male Hebrew babies be thrown into the Nile. Nothing funny about this AT ALL. Pharaoh instructs two midwives, Shifra and Puah, to oversee the killings. They, however, are loyal to (our) God, and decide, at great personal risk, to defy this order. When Pharaoh questions why there are still babies alive, they tell him (essentially) that these crazy, wild, tough Israelite women just pop 'dem babies out before the midwives can even arrive!! No one is trying to "mug" or "reach for comedy effect," but the Torah is reminding us that humor has ALWAYS been a way we deal with tragedy *and* with simple, everyday, mundane real life.

I love the idea of faithfulness that Willson espouses. To preserve authenticity, see the beauty in everything - like the small-town, turn-of-the-century lives of good people in River City, IA - and to affirm the dignity of every individual.

Protagonist or antagonist, everyone is the hero in their own story, and each person is the "keeper of the flame" for some truth and essential principle that is vital to her/him. The key to relationships is to see the other person's narrative, and to honor it, even if (and when) you disagree. I can't say I'll be playing Mayor Shinn perfectly, but I do hope I do him justice. I like the character a lot, and certainly appreciate his increasingly frantic feeling that no one else sees what a swindling spellbinder this Hill-fella really is! Honoring Meredith Willson's wishes, in the end, isn't just about good (or faithful) acting, but it's a reminder about how to view the world, how to engage with others in relationship, and always, ALWAYS to see the humor all around us and be able to laugh. It's good for the soul.


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Cathy Baum on Facebook (picture of (nearly) our whole Music Man cast!)
2. Joe Haupt on Flickr
3. Ad Meskens on Wikimedia Commons (Hieroglyphs depicting birthing chairs in the period of Hapshepsut in Egypt)
4. Piqsels

L'Chaim newsletter article, January, 2020 - Gotta Collect ‘em All

This year, Ohev Shalom is all about our Centennial. We look back at 100 years since our synagogue was incorporated in Chester, and ahead to (hopefully) another century or more of growth, spirituality, and forging deep, new connections. You may have already seen information about this, but I wanted to take a few minutes to highlight a participation opportunity that is about past, present, future, and connecting to something incredibly ancient and holy.

According to Jewish Tradition, the Torah contains 613 commandments. The book itself doesn’t list them by number (or provide a helpful index at the back…), but later rabbis and scholars counted them, and that’s the number we’re all going with. Many still apply today, though somewhere between 100 and 150 refer specifically to the Temple and sacrifice, so they are unfulfillable, at least until (God forbid…) we someday try to rebuild a Temple in Jerusalem. So, admittedly, none of us are aiming for a perfect score of 613, and yet I still want to tell you that the very last one, Commandment #613, is within your grasp right now, this very month at Ohev Shalom.

In Deuteronomy 31:19, just three chapters before the end of the whole Torah, God commands Moses to write “this” down. The original intent may be unclear, but this verse becomes the basis for the mitzvah, incumbent upon all Jews, to write their own Torah. Crazy, right? Handwritten, with a quill, ink, and parchment; it is ludicrous to think that each of us could EVER write such a thing!! But on Sunday, January 5th, and then again on Sunday, the 19th, Ohev will be hosting a sofer (scribe) who will be completing the writing of a Torah Scroll. And each of us can dedicate one or more letters, appoint the sofer to be our emissary, and thereby “write” a part of a scroll. I know it’s not the same as ACTUALLY writing it, but it’s pretty close, it fulfills the commandment, and with a scroll as precious as this particular one, I think you’ll agree that a professional really NEEDS to be doing all the writing!

You see, this is our Lostice Scroll, rescued from a small Czechoslovakian town and thus avoiding Nazi destruction during World War Two. The scroll itself is at least 150 years old, possibly 200 or more. It has been on permanent loan to Ohev for 40 years, and for four decades our community has yearned to make it kosher again, because the damage it sustained 70 years ago made it unusable in services. And who knows when it had last been cleaned or had letters corrected back in Lostice?! So the work we are about to complete now, in January, 2020, thanks to the incredible generosity of Phyllis and Alan Schapire, is likely a century in the making. Much like our Centennial.

I know I sound like an infomercial when I say this, but this kind of opportunity doesn’t come around very often! This is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime deal!! You may not be holding the quill or putting the ink directly onto the parchment, but you would 100% be participating in a phenomenal mitzvah! It is Commandment #613, an ancient charge handed down l’Dor va-Dor, from generation to generation, for millennia. This is a scroll that was rescued from the horrors of the Holocaust, and is one of the last fragments of a community whose legacy is now our responsibilty to carry on. And the symbolism of rededicating such an invaluable piece of Judaica on this, our Centennial, seems to me like the most perfect embodiment of past, present, and future, of legacy and heritage, holiness and spirituality, and a chance to be part of something eternal and enduring.

And all this could be yours, for the low-low price of… :-) You’re not gonna want to miss this one, folks. I guarantee it.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Gerber

Va-Yechi: A Grandfather, A Gabbai, and a Music Man

If you've been reading this blog for a while, or indeed if you're familiar with our congregation, Ohev Shalom, you know that every other year we put on a musical performance. I've written about Fiddler on the Roof,

the Wizard of Oz, and have referred to our Ohev Players troupe on numerous occasions. In just three, short weeks (yikes!), we will be performing The Music Man, and so I wanted to write and share some thoughts I've had about the themes in the show. But I'll start that next week. For now, I would like to focus on something more over-arching about staging musicals, and something that relates both to our parashah this week, AND to a special service we're holding on Saturday morning.

Ritual is important. So is tradition. Not *so* essential, in my opinion, that rituals and traditions can NEVER be broken, or that deviations from the norm should be treated like cardinal sins! But they help us create the structure and guidelines for society, our own lives, and even, sometimes, for our mental health. I venture to say

this is, in part, because we are communal creatures; we are social by nature and organize into groups on instinct. When I watch the Ohev Players' productions take shape, I always marvel at how critically important it is to have volunteers at EVERY level of the endeavor. Performers, directors, producers, choreographers, and music directors, sure! But also people to handle costumes, to design, build, and draw sets, to cover ticket sales, program books, and concessions, manage advertising, to pull the curtain and handle all things stage-crew-related. I mean, when you stop and think about it, it's really unbelievable! And each role has its own rituals and traditions that govern how IT functions, and how it fits into the larger whole.

Our Torah portion this week, Va-Yechi, concludes the Book of Genesis. And we see Jacob preparing for his death, but first wanting to bless Joseph's sons (and his own grandsons), Menashe and Ephraim. The Torah puts forth the choreography for this moment, in chapter 48, verses 5-22, and we are led to believe there is a correct and incorrect way to handle this moment. But Jacob intentionally deviates from the tradition, and blesses the younger son before the
older! And on one level, I marvel at this moment too. Because the Torah has built and built to this scene, with everything that led Joseph to Egypt, and then the family to follow him down there. So many people and forces and drama and super-natural phenomena went into this rising crescendo... only to have Jacob break from the norm at the very last second. And the Torah WANTS it to be so, wants us to see the pattern and the ritual that was... and to highlight those moments in life when we need to veer sharply off to one side or the other, and make a stark, but necessary change.

This Shabbat, we are celebrating the "stage crew" of our synagogue services. Nothing functions on a Saturday morning without the care and commitment put in by our Gabbaim. Part usher, part greeter, part sexton, part prayer leader, and part Levitical priest; the people who volunteer to be Gabbaim enable everything to run smoothly. They give out honors throughout the service, they oversee the Torah reading, and they make sure congregational norms and practices are adhered to...

but with a smile and a gentle demeanor. This Saturday morning, I would like to thank all our Gabbaim for their phenomenal service, and then also discuss and unpack some of our rituals, so that new people may perhaps feel empowered to themselves serve as Gabbai in the future. If you're even a tiny smidge interested, please come! To me, each of these three examples highlights how everyone has a role. There is a part for every individual in a family, a system, or a musical production. But it is also essential to remember that one's small(er) part in the whole does not preclude a person from individual thinking, critical analysis, feedback, or even from occasionally upending the status quo to demonstrate something valuable. What are the rituals in *your* life? What helps create order, structure, and habit for you... and when (if ever) have you broken out of that routine for a (potentially) greater purpose? It's time to examine these things, and to challenge yourself to take an active role AND to sometimes push back against it when necessary. Oh, and it's also time to buy your Music Man tickets! See you on stage!!


CC images in this blog post, courtesy of:
1. Renee Grant on Facebook
2. needpix.com
3. Mosaic Panel in Ohev Shalom's Main Sanctuary - Ephraim
4. Mosaic Panel in Ohev Shalom's Main Sanctuary - Menashe
5. Mnavon on Wikipedia