"The truth is, there isn't only one truth"
Shlomo Artzi and Ishay Ribo's now classic hit, Ve-Ha-Emet, "And the truth is ...."
Valentine’s Day came to Israel. Well, not really, but sort of …
The brief war is thankfully over. The Fast Day of the Ninth of Av is behind us, as are the three weeks of mourning which it concluded. The Jewish calendar, and in many ways, Israeli society, now move into a very different mode.
Friday was Tu B’Av, something sort of akin to (but not really) a Mishnaic version of Valentine’s Day (again, not really). Florists and chocolate companies run ads that are reminiscent of what you’d see in the U.S. in February … love is in the air.
What used to happen on Tu B’av? According to the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:8), it was a gigantic match-making festival:
Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur, as on them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in white clothes, which each woman borrowed from another. Why were they borrowed? They did this so as not to embarrass one who did not have her own white garments. … And the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? Young man, please lift up your eyes and see what you choose for yourself for a wife. Do not set your eyes toward beauty, but set your eyes toward a good family, as the verse states: “Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30)
In the spirit of Tu B’Av, and the move away from mourning to anticipating Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of a new year, we turn our attention this week to a relatively new Israeli song (a few years old), by Shlomo Artzi, perhaps Israel’s great living folk rock musician (think James Taylor of Israel). It’s a duet, in which the 72-year-old secular, Ashkenazi, Israel-born Artzi invited the 33-year-old French-born, Sephardic, Orthodox singer, Ishay Ribo, to work with him.
Here’s one of many available videos of them performing the song. As you listen, even if you don’t speak Hebrew but have a basic familiarity with some of the most famous parts of the liturgy, listen to 1:08 ff and then again at 1:58 ff and again at 3:13 ff. You’ll hear the echoes of Ein Keloheinu, taken from the liturgy and reworked here not only as a praise of G-d, but as part of a love poem serenading a woman …
Here are the words from the liturgy:
And here is the wording from the song:
and the truth is that you are our G-d and you are our savior and you are my last love.
I’ve cited the line many times, but cannot help but repeat it here. My friend, the author and columnist Yossi Klein Halevi, says often (and has written) that you cannot understand Israel if you don’t know its soundtrack. He’s right.
Israelis, obviously, do know the soundtrack, and you can see what happens at 3:58 when Ishay Ribo asks the group to sing without him … Here’s the song (translation and transliteration are below). Listen for the lines from Ein Keloheinu and again at the end, watch the crowd sing without him. (If you open this up on a second screen, you can follow the words below and the video at the same time ….)
So is this a song about God? Or is it a love song? (Is there really a difference?) What does the blurring of the lines between God and a human lover mean in light of the lines “And the truth is, there isn’t just one truth”?
And what does it say about Israeli society that this popular song is a convergence of Ashkenazi and Sephardi, older and younger, Israeli and French-born, secular and Orthodox, singing a song that’s part liturgy and part love-song? What does it say about a society when you see, in the video, thousands of people singing in modern Hebrew, a language brought back to life by the Zionist movement, a contemporary love song, interlaced with liturgy (which they understand and which many of them know is liturgy) that is centuries old?
Ishay Ribo is hardly the first generation of Mizrachi singers to hit the top of the charts; he’s a very talented continuation of that phenomenon which began decades ago. And as we’ll discuss in future columns, what the entree of the Mizrachi world into the elite of Israel entertainment and music means is that its reverence for tradition is also becoming more mainstream. Yes, there is a “secular/religious” divide in Israel, but not in the way most people outside Israel understand it. “Secular” isn’t really secular; as time goes on, “secular” is becoming more traditional, more embracing of the texts and traditions that while people may not rigorously observe, they are no longer fleeing from.
What this regeneration of Jewish culture—manifesting itself in ways few could have predicted when the state was founded—represents is precisely what (some of) the founders of this country hoped might happen. What you see reflected in this song and its performance is what headlines about conflict miss. What you see is what conversation about Israel that is exclusively political never gets to.
What you miss without the soundtrack, without appreciating that this—and not conflict—is what life in Israel is all about, is the rebirth of the Jewish people that is taking place in the Jewish state, far, far away from the headlines. What you miss is a taste of precisely what this country was meant to be.
Anyhow, I love the song, and this interplay between a modern love song and the ancient liturgy. So in the spirit of Tu B’Av, I thought I’d share it. Enjoy … Listen enough times, and who knows? …. you might just find yourself humming along …
The Mechinah movement in Israel, which we’ve mentioned several times, has existed for decades, but really took off after the assassination of Prime Minster Yitzchak Rabin in 1995. There was a desperate need, leading Israeli educators recognized, to develop programs for kids who had graduated high school but not yet begun the army, to think about Jewish tradition, democracy, civil society and the purpose of the country they are about to serve. What emerged was a series of Mechinah programs, one year opportunities after twelfth grade and before the army, for young Israelis to spend a year thinking, learning and (in many of them) meeting people very much unlike themselves.
There are dozens of these Mechinah programs, in which some 5,000 young Israelis are enrolled each year. There are religious mechinot, mechinot that are continuations of youth movements, and mixed mechinot, where religious and secular kids spend a year together.
There’s only capacity for about half of those who wish to attend, so more are on their way. In an earlier episode, quite some time ago, we heard an Israeli Arab woman speak about the need for a Mechinah for young Israeli Arabs. And in today’s episode, we hear from Sharon Vardi, founder of the Mechinah “Leshatef Atzmeinu”, and Nora Berger, a participant in his program—about Mechinah formed for the parents of these young people.
Parents are watching the transformative experience their kids are having, and suddenly wanted to know why they cannot have the same conversations, be exposed to some of the same things. Parents, of course, cannot take off a year and move to the desert to think and read and discuss. So Sharon Vardi founded a program that fits what the parents can manage.
You can see more information (in Hebrew) on the program here: Leshatef Atzmenu
Our conversation, which is a part of our summer series on a mosaic of Israeli educational programs you may not have heard of, will be posted on Wednesday for paid subscribers to Israel from the Inside.
Our twitter feed is here; feel free to join there, too.
Thank you so much, Danny Gordis. The song was great. Would you believe that a recent Mishpacha (haredi) magazine had Ishay Ribo on the cover and a long intersesting story about him and my ulpan (ulpan l'inyan) yesterday focused on the word Artzi mentioning Shlomo Artzi. In his case Artzi means my land (country) and it could mean also earthly. So thanks. I loved seeing them "in person."