This is not the first attempt to revive the Gershwin legend.   In 1993, Nonesuch Records—a budget classical label founded in 1964 as an offshoot of Elektra—released an album entitled Gershwin Plays Gershwin to great fanfare.   The album—through the incredulous work of Gershwin scholar Artis Wodehose—translated piano rolls created by the Jewish composer between 1916 and 1927 into an attempted reproduction of the composer’s actual playing style.   While the roles—perforated sheets of paper that captured the notes played by Gershwin for use in early player pianos—sat in isolation for years, new technology enabled musical engineers to recreate them in a new and seemingly authentic form.  In the wake of the album’s release, various concerts were held where a lone piano would sit on stage, with keys magically moving and a live human orchestra and/or vocalist in accompaniment.     For Gershwin’s most avid fans, these live performances were as if the spirit of George Gershwin was brought back to the stage.

Popular as it was, the album and the ensuing interest in utilizing player pianos during live performances led to rather intense debates.   Especially because the pianolo—the first popularized version of the player piano—was not able to capture the complex dynamics of any particular performance, critics began questioning the true authenticity of the new sound.   Many argued that the very manipulation of the rolls—which occurred during original composition and with Wodehouse’s work—degraded its authenticity.

Ironically, the search for the true Gershwin tended to ignore the fact that Gershwin himself—like most composers of his generation and beyond—were themselves great manipulators of music.   Gershwin took music from his own Jewish background, from African-American blues-makers, from the rag-time innovators and a variety of other popular mediums to create a unique new sound that captured America’s attention at a time of great interest in ethnic and cultural fusion.   The new piano rolls were yet another example of taking music and reformulating it for a new audience.   While they aimed to bring Gershwin back in an authentic form, their power was founded in the efforts of those who worked on re-creating them.

In many respects, this is what makes popular music so attractive to audiences.  Through the blending of various musical styles and through technology’s ongoing ability to transform sound, popular composers and musicians have continually reached out to a wide selection of the American public, who hear sounds that are both familiar and foreign coming together in a unique and exciting form.

The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson was a later example of an artist utilizing such musical and technological integration.   Popularized by its association with the early sixties surf fad, early Beach Boys music—first recorded in Brian’s bedroom—was a derivation of doo-wop harmonies from fifties quartets, simple orchestral melodies from blues-men such as Johnny Otis and modern multi-track recording.   Although the lyrics of such songs dealt with the contemporary teenage beach interest, the music was the very same kind of synthesis of styles that had launched so many other careers, including that of George Gershwin.  As Wilson was plagued by substance abuse and depression, his music continued to evolve.   He later became close with Wall of Sound creator Phil Spector, who transformed early sixties pop and Wilson’s later work by layering it with countless instruments and vocals.

For Gershwin purists who still dream of bringing the composer back, Brian Wilson’s latest experiment Brian Wilson Re-Imagines Gershwin can seem almost blasphemous.   The opening interpretation of Rhapsody in Blue is void of the original’s memorable clarinet solo and uses Wilson’s lush vocal harmonies as its dominating theme.    It Ain’t Necessarily So, the sixth track on the album—originally used as both a challenge to and an appreciation of the myths of religion—includes a chorus that is musically poles apart from any Gershwin composition.   Yet the differences between the originals and Wilson’s new versions are ultimately what make the album so rewarding.   Although the listener can still hear vestiges of Gershwin’s melodies and lyrics, they are re-contextualized in a sea of vocal harmonies, catchy melodic re-interpretations and evocative instrumentals.    In fact, the most disappointing songs on the album—I’ve Got Rhythm and You’re Wonderful—bear that disappointment largely because there is little new to appreciate.

Being a diaspora people has meant that Jewish musicians have constantly relied on the diverse musical styles of their changing homes.    The liturgical music of Jewish synagogues is so often representative of the infusion of the evolving musical styles of the worlds in which Jews have lived.   While the majestic music of 19^th century cantorial composer Sulzer derives from Germany’s thriving classical period, the tribal and repetitive music of the contemporary composer Shlomo Carlebach bears Middle Eastern influence. 

The diverse array of sounds that flow throughout many a synagogue is what led early Tin Pan Alley producers to search the synagogues of the Lower East Side, seeking talent and new musical ideas.   These producers understood that Jewish music was full of promise, because it followed the basic premise of the ongoing human journey.   Our past becomes entangles with our present, and is continually renewed, reworked and remade.    It becomes a meaningful part of our daily lives because the original remains amiable to the work of our hands.

Throughout rabbinic texts, there are tales of ancient patriarchs being thrown into contemporary situations.   In one particular midrash, Moses—who cannot be seen—finds himself listening to a rabbinic dialogue that he does not understand.   When a student asks the rabbis where the knowledge comes from, they answer, “From Moses, our teacher.”    It is at this moment that the reader recognizes the beauty of human evolution.    We are the bearers of the past, using it as a way to explore the present and to make sense of our ever-changing lives.    Our musical past in particular is constantly revisiting us, and being infused with new meaning.  Although the original composers might find themselves bewildered (as many parents were when their children starting listening to Rock and Roll), the new music is built upon the drama of the old and simply re-imagining it to ensure that it continues to reach the hearts and minds of the new generation.

This is why Brian Wilson’s new album Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin is such an important and moving album.   It repackages the past in a way that keeps it alive and vibrant.

Rabbi Brian Leiken is the Assistant Rabbi at Temple Shalom in Norwalk, CT.   Over the past five years, Rabbi Leiken has been speaking and studying the role of Jews in the popular music industry with an emphasis on the rise of Rock and Roll.   He collaborated with photographer Janet Macoska on an exhibit and coffee table book entitled Jews Rock.

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At least two of Cohen’s songs offer a unique perspective on the High Holy Days.   

In his 1967 song The Story of Isaac, Cohen parallels the biblical account of the binding of Isaac to the Vietnam War.   During Rosh Ha-Shanah morning, the story of Isaac’s near fatal journey up Mount Moriah is chanted from the Torah.    According to the biblical text, Abraham is commanded by God to bring his son to be offered as a sacrifice.   Abraham binds his son, but is stopped by an angel who commands that a ram be offered in Isaac’s place.   The narrative has many parallels to the themes of the day.   To begin, the ram that is sacrificed in place of Isaac is physically represented by the shofar – the instrument that is used on Rosh Ha-Shanah to, in Maimonides’s words, “wake the slumberers”.   Secondly, the narrative’s prime focus on sacrifice and faith is central to Rosh Ha-shanah’s image of God as king and judge.

Cohen’s song challenges the basic premise of both the story and the God to whom the story reflects.    He begins by telling the narrative from Isaac’s perspective, and portrays the boy as young, innocent and animated about his father’s endeavors.   He sings,

“So he started up the mountain, I was running, he was walking, and his axe was made of gold.”

Isaac soon questions his father’s actions, although he still is not able to understand them;

“Thought I saw an eagle but it might have been a vulture, I never could decide.”

By the end of the song, Cohen clearly articulates a challenge to the actions of the United States government.  Cohen sees the government’s involvement in Vietnam as an extension of Abraham’s passivity and negligence and diffuses any divine purpose to either the war or Abraham’s actions by singing that a “scheme is not a vision.”   

The importance of the song to Rosh Ha-Shanah could not be more profound.   Cohen’s midrashic interpretation of the biblical narrative portrays a world in which Abraham, and the God for whom he acts, is autocratic.    The father figure that Isaac begins to speak about is quickly usurped by an authoritarian nightmare.   

Jews can easily relate to such a paradox as they listen to the words of Avinu Malkeinu – that ancient liturgical piece that calls God “our father, our King”.     In these difficult moments of the holiday of judgment, we struggle to make sense of God.   Is God judging us as children or as subordinates?   Is the purpose and meaning of life a vision proscribed by God or a scheme that is void of purpose?

In his 1974 song Who By Fire, Cohen is even more deliberate in his attention to the High Holy Day themes.   The song itself is an echo of the Unetaneh Tokef, a piyyut or liturgical poem that was added to the liturgy during medieval times.   Congregants often cringe as the Cantor chants the words, which asks rhetorically who will live and who will die, and then sets a list of the manners in which death will ensue.   The text goes so far as to include statements about humans being nothing more than a flock of sheep passing before their shepherd.    Through his song’s language, Cohen updates the trials by adding such phrases as “who by barbiturate” and “who by powder”.    He asks, “who in the merry merry month of May” as a way of playing with the words and making them almost silly.

The most compelling and revealing part of Who By Fire comes at the end of each stanza, as Cohen asks—as if this is some mundane telephone conversation–“And who shall I say is calling?”  

Ultimately, Cohen is requesting not a judgment but the appearance of the judge himself.    This request recalls the biblical moments when Moses, that prophet of prophets, asks to know God’s name and later, to see God’s face.    For Cohen, it makes little sense that we are judged without actually knowing the power that judges us.   This is a central challenge on the High Holy Days.    We spend these days sitting in judgment by an entity that never appears.    We bear our souls out to God, we repent for all of our sins, we spend hour after hour listening to stories about God’s ability to decide our fate.   Yet God is so seemingly absent.    It is important to note that Cohen is not filled with fury.   Instead of angrily demanding to know who is making such pronouncements, Cohen creates a conversation.   He leaves us with the opportunity to hear back, to find out who is calling..

This same conversation is the journey and challenge of the Jewish High Holy Days.   We come together and stand in judgment before a force that we see as both father and king, a force that we are not allowed to see, or know.   The irony is that the entire purpose of Teshuvah or return is to become closer to God, to re-connect with God.   Yet God is elusive, somewhat frightening and always keeping us on our toes.   Thus, the best we can do is continue the search, request to know more, and thus find ways to bring God closer.   Much like Cohen, we are not meant to be furious but rather, to keep asking.

These two songs are but snippets of Leonard Cohen’s ability to transform the Jewish tradition in new and powerful ways.    His songs are challenges to God and he seeks an answer that he ultimately knows he will not receive.    The power of Cohen’s lyrics are found in the tension between this deep desire to understand and the ultimate futility of such a search.   Yet, as Who By Fire demonstrates, the power of the search is ultimately meaningful.

In Cohen’s The Window, also from 1974, he sings about a lonely individual sitting by a window and staring out with a deep sense of sorrow.    The song concludes with a simple message, perhaps a wish from Leonard to his audience.   He sings softly, “Gentle this soul.”  

 It is ultimately through an engagement with our struggles, our questions and our yearnings, that we will find our gentle soul.   We need not be afraid of the unknown – we simply need to face it.    That is what the new year expects of us.

Eight years ago at his wedding, Rabbi Brian Leiken dressed up as his lifelong hero, Elvis Presley.

Yet it was Paul and not John who wrote and sang the lyrics at the end of Abbey Road, that 1969 Beatles album that is their last and arguably their greatest.    After a medley that includes such hits as You Never Gave Me Your Number and She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, the music slows down, and Paul sings quite magically:

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

It is the so-called golden rule, that most basic of ethical statements made by religious movements throughout history.    In the Bible, the rule is stated simply as “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus, 19:18) In the Talmud, the great sage Hillel is recorded as stating; “That which is despicable to you.   Do not do unto your neighbor.”  (Talmud Bavli, Tractate Shabbat)   In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is quoted as saying, “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” (Matthew, 7:12).   According to the Conversations of Mohammed, the Islamic prophet stated, “That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.” (Conversations of Mohammed, 63).   

To suggest that Paul McCartney’s declaration of the Golden Rule is somehow superior to the thousands of “golden-rule” assertions that preceded it is ridiculous.   Yet Abbey Road has certainly done much to popularize the message in our own generation.  Through Paul’s singing, the message of the Golden Rule has been and will be listened to by millions.  The Golden Rule, this basic foundation on which so many ethical, religious and spiritual traditions are based, was popularized by Paul McCartney who sang it on side b of a 1969 rock and roll album.

In the end, the Beatles had a tumultuous break-up.    As Lennon began dating Yoko Ono and developing a new life philosophy, as Harrison began to desire a solo career, as debates over managers and the direction of the bands’ new label began to cause tension, the Beatles lost their cohesiveness, their sense of togetherness.  It is almost fitting that Abbey Road was recorded during this time.  Paul delivered a simple ancient message in the midst of such chaos.   This ancient message was a perfect way for the Beatles to sign off, to officially say goodbye to the millions of fans who had listened to their music for over a decade.    Paul’s words not only spread the message of what is most important in our lives, but helped fans cope with the loss of an iconic band that had become such an integral part of popular society.

The golden rule, which maintains that meaningful relationships are reciprocal, is a basic foundation of human happiness.  According to the rule, happiness, fulfillment, joy, content or whatever word you deem appropriate to connote the basic human condition of wholeness is found in the quality of one’s relationships.     In his classic piece I-Thou, the philosopher and theologian Martin Buber strenuously argues that relationships built on mutual interests are what the world is based on, what we are here for.   For Buber, “the world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of its beings.”    We may not understand our world but we can relate to it.

Part of the appeal of the Beatles was the portrayal of the relationships that existed within the band.   These four boys from Liverpool not only created great music, but seemed to get along in unusual and powerful ways.   Films such as 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night and the iconic 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine played on the notion that the Beatles were a group of young boys who were in over their heads, yet had developed deep friendships with one another.  Whether or not this was true is irrelevant.   The first great Rock and Roll band was popularized by the notion that they cared deeply about each other and were on a tenuous journey together.   This was a group of four boys who understood the Golden Rule and had applied it to their own relationships for a decade.

Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman in 1941 and grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota.   Both his paternal and maternal grandparents were Eastern European Jewish immigrants and his parents were active members of Hibbing’s small Jewish community.   Although he had a Bar Mitzvah in 1954, Robert Zimmerman was never interested in his Jewish identity.   As biographer Howard Sounes writes, “It was not that he was ashamed of being Jewish; it seemed more that he did not want to be limited in the eyes of others by being defined simply as Jewish.”  

In the fifties, religion was a celebrated aspect of America’s new conservative social behavior.   During this decade, images of families sitting down at dinner to say grace were commonplace.  The words “under God” were added to the pledge of allegiance and “In God We Trust” was added to all U.S. currency.  President Dwight Eisenhower told Americans that “our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply religious faith—and I don’t care what it is.”   America’s Jews were not immune from this social development.    Indeed, the fifties saw the largest increase in the building of synagogues than any decade before it.

It was this world in which Robert Zimmerman grew up.   Like so many others of his generation, he found the new conservative values to be cumbersome and meaningless.   He found solace in the images of the new teenager that were portrayed by actors such as James Dean, folk music that addressed social justice and blues music that addressed the inner turmoil of African-American’s lives.  He would eventually leave Minnesota and play the Greenwich Village Folk music circuit in New York during the early sixties.   He called himself Bob Dylan after reading poems by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.   While working the clubs in the early sixties, Bob Dylan created an entirely new personality for himself.   He sang about social issues, spoke about authenticity and told friends that he had been brought up under the tough conditions handed out to America’s blue collar workers.

The youth of the sixties were ready for this kind of personality.  This was a decade in which half of the American population was under the age of thirty.  It was also a decade which experienced an incredible amount of social upheaval.   The possibility of nuclear devastation had become very real as the Cuban Missile Crisis took America close to war.   The Civil Rights movement revealed the deep racial tensions that were ripping the country apart.   The assassinations of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr. exposed a violent reaction to change.  The Vietnam War, and the draft that came with it, forced America’s youth to come face to face with their own mortality.   Bobby Zimmerman’s transformation into Bob Dylan came on the brink of an era in which America’s youth would be asked to grow up very quickly.

Although he would later travel to Israel after his father died, Dylan never really connected to his Jewish roots – even converting to Christianity for a brief period of time in the late seventies.   Despite this rejection, Robert Zimmerman’s transformation to Bob Dylan is an important American Jewish story.    Like so many American Jews who came before him, Dylan rejected his Jewish past in an attempt to find a more authentic and meaningful lifestyle.  

For the generation of Jews who grew up in the fifties and sixties, Judaism was not an open spiritual journey but a set of fixed practices that were limited by their very nature.   This generation wanted to invent a new lifestyle for itself, a lifestyle that was exciting and transformative.   For this generation, Bob Dylan represented an opportunity to deal with the rising angst of being a teenager.

Yet time would change and Bob Dylan would eventually speak to the generation of American Jews growing up today.   This generation has a very different experience with Judaism.   Their Rabbis are more welcoming, their synagogues are more open and their experience with Judaism enables them to ask questions instead of only being told answers.   For these Jews, Dylan’s music actually parallels Jewish ideas and values.   As Jewish children are becoming Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and learning that their parents no longer control their destiny, Dylan’s line that “..your sons and your daughters are beyond your command” resonates.   As Jews read through the Book of Ecclesiastes and read about the ancient struggle to find pleasure in life, Dylan’s line that “Life is sad, life is a bust, all ya can do is do what you must” resonates.   As Jews recite the words “Who shall die by fire and who by water” during the High Holy Days, Dylan’s line that “God knows there’s gonna be no more water but fire next time” resonates.

The great irony of Bob Dylans’ rejection of Judaism is that so many Jews are now listening to his music through a Jewish lens.   Perhaps the great lesson in his story is that his generation’s search for meaning is a search that has been going on for thousands of years.   Because he saw Judaism through the prism of 1950’s America, Dylan and so many other Jews could not recognize that the journey they were embarking on was a journey that had long been taken by their ancestors.

“You’d remember drinking horchata, You’d still enjoy it with your foot on Masada.”

Masada?   What American pop band references Masada?    I instantly went to the web to learn more.   After a few clicks of my mouse, I quickly figured out that lead singer Ezra Koenig is Jewish, but that he hasn’t spoken much about his religious upbringing on albums or in interviews.   I then looked back at the lyrics and tried to make sense of them.   This simple song is about pleasure, something that can be found even in a simple Spanish drink.   In this one particular line, Koenig states that even a person with their foot dangling off Masada would remember drinking such a beverage.  

Masada is the Dead Sea mountain fortification used by Jews as the Roman Empire was attempting to destroy them during the first Jewish-Roman War.   Instead of succumbing to Roman aggression, the Jews of Masada committed mass suicide—becoming martyrs in the minds of many modern Jews.   Today, tourists climb up Masada and speak of its inhabitants as heroes who willfully took their own lives instead of being killed.    I remember my first visit to Israel, where I climbed up this large mountain and watched the sun rise alongside my friends.

Does it make sense that we as Jews view mass suicide as something to celebrate?   Masada has become a heroic place, where Jews remember their ancestors’ actions fondly.   Is large scale mass suicide something worthy of celebration?    In my mind, Masada is a deeply sad place, where people perished.     As I travel there, I always try to remember that fact.

Thus, this one particular line from Vampire Weekend’s Horchata resonates with me.    The fact that one could remember the joy of drinking a Spanish beverage with a foot dangling from a site of mass suicide says a lot about a beverage.  Must be pretty good … It also says a lot about the song’s lyricist.   Clearly, the person who wrote this song knew the story of Masada, and its ethical complications.   

Yes, Ezra Koenig is Jewish.   No, he doesn’t speak of it often.   Yet in this song, one gets the sense that he struggles with Jewish concepts and ideas like any good Jew should do.  

At face value, the story of the Beatles seems irrelevant to Jewish history.   However, delving deeper into the Beatles narrative, one discovers that there was one Jewish chap who played an integral, if not central role in their rise to fame.   His name was Brian Epstein.

Brian Epstein’s family was a staple of Liverpool’s Jewish community, owning a prominent furniture shop and a music store called North End Music.   Brian had his Bar Mitzvah at the Green Bank Drive Synagogue in Liverpool and was educated at the Beaconsfield Jewish school in Sussex.    His Uncle Meier noted that “he was obviously well educated in Hebrew and Hebrew liturgy.” (In My Life, page 4).   

Brian Epstein was interested in theatre and first attempted to make a career in dramatic arts.   The career did not pan out and Epstein ended up running the family music store.   As Epstein noted himself on the BBC, “when I left school…I had ambitions to be an actor, but my family wasn’t very keen on this and I allowed myself to be swayed into going into the business.” (Brian Epstein, BBC Home Service, March 7 1964).   While working at the music store, Epstein wrote a weekly article about new record releases for a publication called the Mersey Beat.    On November 9, 1961, Brian Epstein walked into the Cavern Club and watched the Beatles perform for the very first time.   Taken by their performance, Epstein would eventually propose to become the Beatles first manager.

What did Brian Epstein do for the Beatles?   To begin, he helped to create a new image for them.   When Epstein found the Beatles, the boys wore leather and acted like the rebels they saw in the moving pictures.   Epstein had them cut their hair, wear suits and become charming young men.   Epstein introduced the Beatles to the iconic music producer George Martin who helped fashion their music into something that a broad public could enjoy.   Epstein was also central in the Beatles’ ability to hire drummer Ringo Starr, in their first tour of the United States, in quelling the waters after Lennon told the public that his band was more popular than Jesus and in ensuring that each band member was protected.   Although he would later be blamed for some business naiveté, Brian Epstein helped build the Beatles career and became an advocate for each of them.

Epstein’s sexual orientation and religion would prove to be challenges throughout his life.   John Lennon in particular would often use pejorative terms about both of these character traits during casual conversations.     Epstein was also challenged by drug use and eventually succumbed to an overdose on August 27, 1967.    The Beatles were never the same after Brian Epstein’s death.  Some consider the event to have led to their eventual break-up.

Brian Epstein’s Judaism was always an issue during the years in which he managed the Beatles.    In the early sixties, Paul McCartney was warned by his father that being managed by a Jew was dangerous.   John Lennon constantly brought up the Jewish factor in personal conversations.   Brian even himself spoke about the challenges of feeling different in his autobiography A Cellarful of Noise.    To compound his emotional fragility, Epstein’s ongoing interest in John Lennon seemed to always cause him pain.

Brian Epstein must be remembered as one of the great Rock and Roll heroes, who recognized the talent of four boys from Liverpool, cared for each as a parent would do and ensured their success in taking over the music charts.  Brian Epstein, the fifth Jewish Beatle, died at the young age of 32 and is buried in the Liverpool Jewish Cemetery.