HEALTH COACH TALKS with Ya'qub ibn Yusuf about Joy
HEALTH COACH TALKS
Thank you, dear friend, Ya'qub, for taking the time to share the wisdom that you have earned from a lifetime devoted to your studies.
1. You have gone on ahead, in your studies, can you report back to us the important details (both the sublime and the mundane; the micro and the macro) about the joy, that you have encountered?
2. What do the great teachers tell us about joy?
3. You are living in a hotbed of conflict. What role can joy have there?
4. Is there joy on the streets of the new city of Jerusalem?
5. Please share with my readers, here at HEALTH COACH, any personal wisdom, from your life devoted to scholarly study, about joy.
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The Temple Mount at sunset
with the New City of Jerusalem rising behind
with the New City of Jerusalem rising behind
I came home late from a Turkish Sufi music concert, following a Kabbalistic session of musical meditations. I got home, turned on the computer, and fell asleep in my armchair
The Light Rail Train Bridge is located near the Eastern Gate
In ancient times this road connected the Old City of Jerusalem with the Tel Aviv Highway, Jaffo at the Mediterranean Sea, and Herzl Boulevard, one of the most important arteries of the New City of Jerusalem.
But maybe I’ll take a minute and write about the concert. Because it was literally on neighbourhood
The open market, there is a wild, crazy place where sellers stand behind the counters of their shops open to the streets, even in winter. I was impressed last night, coming out of the class I attended in Nachlaot with Yitzchak Schwartz, a guitar-playing ultra-orthodox rabbi with a very big heart who was born in El Paso, Texas.
I was impressed even as I caught a bus to go home at 11:30 pm, to see young folks sitting in the cold (above freezing, but still cold by Middle East standards!) at all kinds of bars and cafes. I myself had just been sitting outside, listening to Turkish music, some of it inspired by dervish poetry. That’s the only thing that would keep me sitting outside between 9:30 and 11 pm! I was amazed to see more and more people coming and sitting there around me, drinking tea, or beer, or Arak, eating all kinds of things that go with pita bread, and enjoying this music. The group is called Ashik which means Lover (of God), and the bar, which is on a lane off the main street; opens at night when most of the markets are closed, and serves people sitting on folding chairs and tables, right there in the lane.
There were a few Jewish Israelis of Turkish origin - the young woman singer and the bamboo Ney flute player in the group and a few people in the audience. In the summertime, when Ashik plays, it seems to me there are more people interested in Sufism, and I read a few poems from the dervish Yunus Emre that I’ve published in Hebrew.
Aşık Ensemble
But this night it was just for the music, people were there because they love oriental music. When they finished the program, a young fellow who works at the restaurant started to improvise some Arabic song with some of the musicians. Mostly young people were there. I noticed a beautiful young black woman smoking a hookah… and then a white-haired older man got up and started to dance, waving his wool scarf in the air! The audience went wild… this was just as I was leaving.
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So is there joy in the streets of Jerusalem? At an outside café in a lane off the main street of the Mahaneh Yehudah market, last night, there was a lot of joy. After 8 days of Hanukah, on what everyone knew would be Christmas Eve… somewhere else… there was joy. Mostly Jewish people (maybe some Arabs), mostly young, people who love oriental music, Turkish, Arabic, whatever; people who want to celebrate living here in the Middle East and crossing boundaries and having a good time; many of us felt joy.
This is one thing I’ve noticed about Jerusalem that’s very different than Istanbul. In Istanbul, it’s really crowded. What is it - 17 million people? More than the whole population of all of Israel, Jewish and Arab, crammed into one city! And people there are well-behaved. Nobody shouts in the streets. It’s just not done. Here, in Jerusalem, people feel free to express themselves. We’re Jews at home in our homeland. Friends shout, celebrate, sing songs, pray. In the streets, and in their homes, with open windows. And they argue! A driver doesn’t stop at the crosswalk, and the middle-aged woman with red streaks in her hair and ski pants, starts shouting at the driver about his bad behaviour
For me, personally, I think of joy as a quieter, more inward thing. There are moments of appreciation and expansion, of feeling: Well, yes, this is good, which I’d call joy. We can talk about mindfulness - remembering to sense the body. We can talk about remembering God, and gratitude. Joy is close to these
In Judaism, we have lots of mitzvoth
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But I mention this because joy is like that for me. We have the same problem in Judaism. There’s a Hasidic teacher, Rebbe Nahman, who really showed me the vision I was seeking - of how universal spirituality and Judaism might fit together - when I first came to Winnipeg to study with Reb Zalman some 40 years ago. While I’ve been digging out Reb Nahmans deeper spiritual teachings over the course of these years, some of his more popular teachings—and he’s become very popular, especially among the newly religious here in Israel—don’t speak to me so much. Especially the one about the command to be joyous.
My old friend and teacher Arthur Green who is in Israel this week, just published a book about Ten Great Ideas of Judaism, and the first one he discusses is the emphasis on joy. And this is a point where I don’t mind being a bit of a heretic. I don’t think you can command joy. It doesn’t feel right at all. You clear the way… and joy comes, love comes. Of its own. Art does quote a nice passage, though, from Rebbe Nahman, where he describes someone feeling depressed who gets invited to joy, like being invited to join a circle of dancers and there’s a part of yourself that stays on the sidelines looking on at your dancing. And you have to grab that part of yourself as well, and pull him into the dance! Well, what can I say? I don’t like to have to and should but I do like that description.
There’s a popular expression in Judaism which is said at sad events like funerals, which Art quotes in Yiddish, but I hear a lot around me in Hebrew: “Just at rejoicings!” Indeed, the general term in Hebrew and Yiddish for births, weddings, bar and bat mitzvas, is Simchas orsmachot
There’s a popular expression in Judaism which is said at sad events like funerals, which Art quotes in Yiddish, but I hear a lot around me in Hebrew: “Just at rejoicings!” Indeed, the general term in Hebrew and Yiddish for births, weddings, bar and bat mitzvas, is Simchas or
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness, comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Rumi
Seven years earlier, my father passed away. He was the rabbi of the only congregation in Tzfat that had men and women sitting together. Anyway, I remember as we sat for seven days in traditional mourning, people would say the traditional Jewish blessing, “It should only be at Simchas, at rejoicings!” And my mother and sister and I discussed how annoying this was. My father’s passing was sad, but it was also joyous. He followed his vision and he quietly led a great life. What an accomplishment!
The problem is, people didn’t want to honour bismachot savour
It brings me just a little bit to the edge of tears, to recall these things about my mother, my father, my family. There’s joy in that sadness. I wouldn’t have it any other way… than the way it is. Thank God, for the whole of our life!
With much love,
Oriental Music and Stories
Podcast From Olam Qatan
Book and Oriental Music Store, Jerusalem
Hosted by Ya'qub ibn Yusuf
1. The Range
2. The Corner
3. Schlomo Bar & David D'Or
4. Yair Dalal & The Perfume Road
5.& Mark Eliyahu Piris
Olam Qatanmicrocosm or small world and is the name of Jerusalem’s spiritual bookstore & East-West music store. Our Olam Qatan program features new Israeli music bridging secular and religious approaches to Judaism, Ashkenazic and Sephardic culture, and sometimes also bridging the Jewish and Arab worlds. This episode gives a first taste of the new spiritual and East-West music of Israel: from Shlomo Bar, Bustan Avraham, Yair Dalal, E-W Ensemble, Sheva and Shotei HaNevua, to Yasmin Levy, Yonatan Razel, Eden MiQedem, Meir Banai and Diwan HaLev. means
The music can be purchased from Olam Qatan.
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Olam Qatan
54 Emek Refaim
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