Three disconnected paragraphs coming up and a slightly longer post written in something of a rush:
Last week, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. I accepted many congratulations on his behalf. For those who are blissfully unaware, I obsess over Dylan like a Golders Green resident obsesses over an Etrog at an all-you-can eat arbah minim sale.
A metronome is a strange little instrument that is used by musicians to make sure they are keeping with the correct beat. It is also used as an adjective to describe something incredibly consistent. Glenn Mcgrath, the great Australian fast bowler, was often described as possessing 'metronomic accuracy' for landing every ball on the same spot during a career which spanned over 10 years.
I have recently started giving a seminar at University on the relationship between science and religion. One of the most interesting aspects of this for me is the way many people relate to religion: It is something that, if it makes you happy, is a good thing. Ultimately, the way many students address the issue of challenges or contradictions that exist between the religious and scientific spheres is that religion is personal, feeling based and non-binding whereas science is factual and commands obedience.
I find this attitude to be quite familiar in terms of how religious people are encouraged to engage with their religion: make it personal, your own, and meaningful. 'Have a meaningful fast'. What most people mean by meaningful is something along the lines of personal inspiration, an emotional interaction with the prayer book or general positive thoughts about the year ahead.
Yet in the midst of all this liberal meaning, which in principle I have nothing against, the conservative sporting a tweed jacket and coattails in me rears his ugly head: hogwash - this is about duty. Majesty. God is not simply your nice and warm friend.
I think the same thing when it comes to people's obsession with halakhic details and general sentiments that religion is effectively about loving halakha in all its minutiae. I don't think the power of halakhic practice is enjoying it at all. It actually helps if you don't particularly love it.
It is in its stability, its metronomic reliability and permanence that I think lies its real power and is why it is the Jewish expression of religiosity. The metronome, that reassuring presence, like family, which is part of your security and sense of self. Like family, it can also drive you up the wall. But it is always there, giving you a nudge or reminder in the direction of God. As the rabbi in our shul mentioned over Yom Kippur, looking at the list of regrets in the siddur is a bit like the data overload of being on facebook. And this is a point I would like to assert as something which rings true in my own mind at least: halakha provides religious context and boundaries but not necessarily content.
To explain by example: As I was standing for the repetition of the Amidah during Rosh ha shana/Yom Kippur, I thought to myself: Why am I standing? Instantly I visualised someone running up to me with a Mishna brurah showing me a source. That made me want to lie on the floor and start digging. Nope, not because of that. I thought of all the times I have ridiculed some of the sailor-on a pirate ship-style liturgical tunes of the Ashkenazic community, is that meaningful to me? But nevertheless, there I was, singing my heart out and God knows I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world. Then the metronome came back into the picture. Then came Dylan. The two are linked.
Dylan is my metronome, to be frank. The disconnected, stream-of consciousness lyrics paint pictures that have accompanied me for the past ten years. What do they really mean? Even if I accept the premise of the question, it doesn't matter and I don't care. But they accompany me through many moments. Because the songs are loaded with ambiguities. Ambiguities that seem to produce many simultaneous and sometimes contradictory meanings.
Dylan uses language to penetrate the mind and heart like no other singer. There are no 'Love songs' that are simply descriptive of primal desire or heartbreak. Lyricists today seem to think that by exaggerating emotions as much as possible, they touch on something truly authentic. Well, I beg to differ. Take Adele's 'Someone like you' for instance, widely considered a modern day masterpiece. Or something from Ed Sheeran. Certainly, they manage to communicate something deeply felt but it usually can be summarised by the sentence: Breakups are sad and painful.
Dylan's words are playfully ambiguous so they can mean several things; most importantly they realise that emotion is usually fraught with tension from several sides. You very rarely only feel one thing. Despair can be accompanied by relief. Words that sometimes sound like the most painful things on earth can in time come to communicate healing and comfort.
People tell me it's a sin to know and feel too much within I still believe she was my twin but I lost the ring, she was born in spring and I was born to late, brought on by a simple twist of fate.
Words that have no obvious meaning to the non-initiated start playing automatically in my mind at times that seem oddly appropriate
Aint it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?
Or just plain weird:
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood with his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
You would not think to look at him, but he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row
Who's the jealous monk? No idea. But I've definitely seen the electric violinists on desolation row.
It is largely for this reason that I can listen to Dylan almost endlessly. It is as though his words adapt to suit the situation that I find myself in at present. This is what links Yom Kippur to Dylan. The power of the metronome. That meaning doesn't need to be some clever construction on the part of the individual, it is enough for it to be a familiar friend giving you a nudge, wink or pat on the back. A call from the ancient past as storms brew ahead.
Everyone likes a good revolution on Rosh ha shana, a reinvention.
But truth be told, revolutions have a tendency to be bloody, destructive and not particularly effective.
I can hear my ancestors calling from the land far beyond
