September 28, 2011 | 1:40 pm

Don’t Give up on Yourself this Rosh Hasnahah— A Prayer for Tashlich

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Check out cool Tashlich services at end of article.

King David writes in Psalms, “Out of the narrows of distress I called upon God, God answered me with liberation.” With these words we introduce the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

With these same words we metaphorically cast our sins, represented by bread crumbs, into fresh waters during Tashlich. Tashlich is generally performed in the afternoon on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. However, Tashliach can still be performed all the way until Hoshanah Rabba, which, according to Kabbalah, is the last opportunity for repentance. 

The custom of Tashlich is based on the words of the prophet Micah, “And You shall cast all their sins into the depths of the sea,” and is practiced in most Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities around the world.

Why do Tashlich? Tashlich is a way to unlock two of the spiritual missions of Rosh Hashanah: that our sins to be washed away so we can begin anew, and that we can conquer our shortcomings and make real change in the year to come.

The Me’am Loaz, an 18th century Ladino commentary, points out “Just as King David did not despair of redemption, we are not to give up hope even in the midst of the most terrible distress.”

When I perform Tashlich, standing by living water and in the presence of God, I pour my heart out and ask God to wash away the barriers to spiritual and personal growth. I ask God to liberate me from all the bad traits and habits which got me into trouble this past year — those things which lead me away from my true mission in life.

No doubt, we all have something from this last year that we need God’s help to cleanse.

After I meditate on that for a while, I repeat once more the words of King David, “Out of the narrows of distress I called upon God, God answered me with liberation.”

Three great Tashlich Services in LA

Join JConnectLA for Sunset Tashlich By The Sea, October 2 at 6pm, Santa Monica Pier. Free

Nashuva- Tashlich By The Sea, September 29th, 4:45pm, 1 North Venice Blvd, Venice. Free

Down to the River - Sat, Oct 1, A high holy days experience, 5:30PM at Marsh Park in Elysian Valley $40

August 29, 2011 | 3:53 pm

Elijah’s Song

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Elijah and Matisyahu.

Earlier this year I sat down for lunch in Miami with Adam Weinberg, a full time music producer and musician, and musical advisor for Jewlicious. He told me he had a song on his phone that I had to listen to which he had recorded with our friend Matisyahu.

Within moments of listening to the song, I was crying, eyes full of tears, streams of tears running down my face, reaching for handfuls of tissues. And every time I put on this beautiful song - the tears keep rolling down.

The history of the song is both inspiring and sad.

Matishyahu befriended a young boy with cancer named Elijah. There was something very special about this young man. He never complained and was always in good spirits. They quickly became friend and Elijah and Matisyahu would keep in constant contact. Matisyahu even surprised Elijah by showing up and performing at his bar mitzvah. For some time, Elijah had wanted them to record a song together, but Matisyahu’s schedule was very busy and they had not found an opportunity.

Late last year, Matisyahu came to Florida for a concert. Elijah came to the concert, and again asked Matisyahu about recording a song. The next morning Matisyahu got a call that Elijah was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit in serious condition.

Matisyahu showed up that evening at the ICU with Adam and some recording equipment. They knew that his condition was grave, and decided that they would write and record a song then and there.

Elijah and Matisyahu started writing the song. The ideas for the music and majority of the words came from Elijah himself. The whole time they were recording, Adam worked hard to keep the noise of the machines in the ICU unit out of the recording. Adam, Matisyahu’s longtime acoustic accompanist, played along on guitar and the song took shape. They finished around midnight.

One might imagine that a song written by a dying boy would be sad and full of regret — but the song is inspiring, courageous, and shows his profound belief in God.

Never know what tomorrow brings,
don’t have the answers to tell you.
Take it one step at a time,
see where God will lead you.
I don’t have the words to say,
But a miracle happens every day.
Are you just too blind to see it?
Open your eyes I’m sure you’ll find,
That God is always behind it.

Never give up, never quit just keep moving on
Your a survivor just keep on living strong.
When you fall down just keep on moving along,
Elijah it’s the time of your song.

In the morning, Matisyahu and Adam received news that Elijah passed away a few hours after recording the song.

“I wrote and recorded this song with my friend Elijah just hours before he passed away last December,” said Matisyahu, “I’m proud to be able to share his voice and story while helping his family on their road to recovery.”

The track can be downloaded with a minimum donation of $1 and all of the proceeds go to the Elijah Memorial Fund. The download includes two versions of “Elijah’s Song”, including a special version with Elijah and Matisyahu singing together the night before Elijah passed.

Our bookstores are full of books on faith - but nothing I have read so far can match the profound faith of Elijah’s last song.

Read a full letter about Elijah’s Song from Matisyahu
Listen to Elijah’s Song

Elijah’s Song w/ Elijah

___________________

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the next generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of the Jewlicious Festival, and executive rabbi at JConnectLA. Rabbi Yonah is a frequent contributor to JewishJournal.com,  Jewlicious.com and HuffingtonPost.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah

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August 21, 2011 | 10:41 am

A Rebirth Of Jewish Life In Downtown Detroit

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Kick for Detroit kicks off today.

Matisyahu stood out in front of the crowd. He had just stage-dived head first off of a 15 foot-high stack of speakers from the side of the stage. The crowd held him aloft and returned him to the stage as if rehearsed.

“Detroit,” he yelled into the microphone, “you are f—-ing crazy!”

The crowd roared back.

Lights made the already stifling heat even more unbearable. How they could continue to play? Yet, an hour into the show, the pace and intensity of the music was growing. The crowd jumping up and down to the beat of the music. Rivers of sweat ran off the drummer who was shirtless by the end.

With over 1,000 people packed into the air-condition-less hall, many took turns outside on the front steps of St. Andrews. It was that hot inside.

When the band finished, and walked offstage, the crowd would not leave. They started to chant for more.

Matisyahu, already drenched head to toe, returned with his signature anthem of peace, “One Day.” He brought dozens of concert-goers on stage to accompany him. St. Andrews Hall pulsed with sweat, cheers. Across the room of outstretched arms the crowed chanted the words at the top of their lungs unmoved by the searing heat.

—  — —

Earlier in the day, a few miles from the venue, I brought Matisyahu to visit the newly established Motor City Moishe House. The community and residents transformed a historic home which once housed a venerable rabbi of yesteryear into a communal home, part of the national Moishe House network.

In this blighted neighborhood, Detroit’s Jewish community is banking on this collective to be a hub of programming for young adults. Theough opened only months ago, at least fifty people showed up with just two days notice to meet the singer and enjoy a vegan feast prepared by a young kosher caterer.

When I was growing up in Detroit in the 1970’s and 80’s, the notion that Jews would return to the city — literally the areas of old Detroit that housed the core of the community for a hundred years —  was a remote fantasy. The community had been moving to the suburbs since the 1950’s. By the time I was born, the Jewish community, all the synagogues and temples had moved to the suburbs. My parents choice to live in the city was never quite understood. Two small shuls stuck it out.

It’s no secret that Detroit is on the ropes. The city is a shadow if its former self, even with gorgeous new stadiums for baseball and football. Miles of the city have been razed and nature is reclaiming them. Miles of empty commercial real estate line the streets of the sprawling suburbs. Corruption and mismanagement were rampant and reached their zenith when the mayor was arrested two years ago.

However, Detroit’s Jewish community, who live almost entirely in the suburbs, is not ready to give up on a city that has such a rich and vibrant Jewish past. In addition to the new Moishe House, and a Repair the World volunteer, a landmark synagogue recently was saved. The Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue was about to close its doors and sell their building after 90 years. The situation had been so bad that they needed to recruit the bartender of a nearby night club to make a minyan. A group of my contemporaries, old shul members, and younger Jews have banded together and saved the shul. The compelling saga was even covered by NPR   who ran a story about it.
Detroit’s Jews are resilient and instead of closing the Downtown Synagoge, they celebrated their 90th with 300 people.

As the Motor City’s modern bard Eminem, offers, “Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity…Would you capture it or just let it slip?”

Kick for Detroit is today - you can make a donation to help the rebirth of Jewish life in Downtown Detroit.
_________________

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the next generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of the Jewlicious Festival, and executive rabbi at JConnectLA. Rabbi Yonah is a frequent contributor to JewishJournal.com,  Jewlicious.com and HuffingtonPost.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah

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August 17, 2011 | 12:36 pm

Camp Jewlicious - A Camp Festival of Jewlicious Proportions

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

I will am attending summer camp.

However, Camp Jewlcious is not your typical summer camp in LA. For starters, the average age of the campers is 25. There are no counsellors, visitor’s day, curfews, or color-wars and camp lasts only four days. Instead of sing-a-longs, there are rock concerts. Cabin raids have been replaced by cabin parties. In fact, many of the things which might have gotten you kicked out of camp as a kid are now permitted.

The evolution of Camp Jewlicious starts with my experiences at the largest summer music festivals across Europe and the States. These festivals collectively attract millions of young adults annually. I dreamt that perhaps one day we could create a summer music festival for Jewish young adults. We would invite Jewish performers, find a rural setting with space for camping out, simultaneous performances, and space for communal meals.

Instead of Shabbat being something that we did between sets alongside the blaring music, Shabbat would be a day of alternative programming like during summer camp. We would provide yoga, hikes, meditation, discussion groups, Sabbath services of different flavors and many other programs. Havdallah would be celebrated around a massive bonfire with singing and dancing, and then just like that the music would start again. The festival would be a fusion of summer camp and a music festival. In fact there were already two other summer music festivals reminiscent of camp, “Summer Camp” near Chicago” and “Camp Bisco” in upstate New York.

This dream of starting a summer music and camping festival did not surprise my wife Rachel.

Our experience showed that festival weekends are trans-formative experiences which transcend differences and strengthen the identity of the participants. We started organizing the Jewlicious Festival for specifically this reason in 2005 when Rachel was director of Long Beach Hillel. Jewlicious Festival today attracts a thousand young adults from twenty states. Co-created with an organizing committee of young adults, the festival celebrates all things Jewish with concerts, workshops, films, over fifty presenters and has been described by one participant as “a weekend unlike any other in Jewish history.”

Academic investigations of music festivals explain why the Festival has been so successful in its mission. According to one recent studies published by Jan Packer and Julie Ballantyne last year, the festival a young person chooses says something about their identity. It provides “a new social context removed from the expectations and routines of everyday life..and allows participants to reflect and re-evaluate their own self-understand and self-acceptance.”

Young people don’t go to festivals for the music, “they go,” said Prof. George McKay author of Glastonbury, “because of the mass experience, the event itself. It fulfills a basic human need that many of us want to surround ourselves with like-minded people at festivals - it’s life affirming.”

“For some, membership of a tribe gives them self esteem,” says Prof. Adrian North, “if you are with people you think are cool it reaffirms your own lifestyle choices - you’re basically patting yourself on the back.”

With communal disaffection for young Jews at an all time low in LA and around the country—  young Jews need a pat on the back more than ever. According to studies, most of these young Jews are not interested in communal life, not sure about Israel, not likely to raise a Jewish family. But they are interested in life-affirming experiences, festivals, music, culture, and membership in a tribe -  precisely the elements that make summer music festivals so attractive. When young Jews come together at a Jewish festival it reaffirms and strengthens their own Jewish identity - and we have a lot of fun.

Thanks to support from generous sponsors, our summer camp music festival is not just a dream. Camp Jewlicious, a mashup of a Coachella, summer camp and Dirty Dancing, is a potent reaffirmation of Jewish identity which is fun, meaningful, and bound to impact the Jewish future in creative and positive ways.

Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the next generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of the Jewlicious Festival, and executive rabbi at JConnectLA. Rabbi Yonah is a frequent contributor to JewishJournal.com,  Jewlicious.com and HuffingtonPost.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah

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August 9, 2011 | 6:14 pm

The Story of Ami and Bar Ami

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

There once was a man who was having a conference about a crisis affecting Israel. He had a friend named Ami that he wanted to invite to speak. There happened to be another man in town named Bar Ami that he had terrible disagreements with over almost every issue concerning Israel. His assistant started sending out invitations to speakers and mistakenly sent out an invite to Bar Ami.

Meanwhile, Bar Ami got the invite and thought that the other man had a change of heart and wanted to initiate dialogue. So he went to the Israel conference and prepared to speak. The host of the event saw that Bar Ami was going to be next at the podium and flew into a rage. He personally went over to Bar Ami and started to kick him out of the conference. Bar Ami tried to reason with him that he would be very embarrassed if he were dis-invited. However, the host didn’t back down. Bar Ami then offered to sponsor part of the conference. The organizer told him that he didn’t need his money or sponsorship. And so the host kicked Bar Ami out of the conference.

Bar Ami saw that there were all kinds of Israel supporters at the conference, even prominent ones. None of them stood up to speak-out when the host was kicking him out. “It must be,” reasoned Bar Ami, “that the participants all sided with the host.” So Bar Ami decided to retaliate. He went to the offices of a senator running to be president, and told him that the Jews were planning on working against him.

The Senator did not believe him.

Bar Ami told him to go to Israel and place a letter in the Kotel and see if the Jews respected his privacy, thereby showing their respect to him. The Senator agreed and went to Jerusalem. Bar Ami had suspicions that the note would be made public and that the Senator would not be respected or worse.

When the Senator arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the Holy Wall in an unannounced visit, donned a yarmulke and placed a note in the crack in the Kotel. Someone pulled the note, handwritten on King David Hotel stationery, out of the Wall, and a leading paper in Israel published it:

“Lord, Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

The decision by the newspaper to make the note public on Friday drew criticism. The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, said that publishing the note intruded in the future relationship with God.

“The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them,” he told the journalists. The publication “damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves,” he said.

A rival newspaper claimed they had been approached to publish it and had decided against it to preserve the Senator’s privacy. Bar Ami was successful at persuading the Senator that the conference of Israel supporters and even Israel were working against him.

When the senator was elected President, he appointed Bar Ami as his trusted advisor on Israel, much to the dismay of the organizers of the Israel conference which had booted Bar Ami. The President immediately called on Israel to unilaterally advance the “peace process,” and refused to meet with the Israeli leader. The President now felt that the Israeli Prime Minister was an unwilling partner to his vision of a peaceful middle east.

Leaders in Israel squabbled about whether their Prime Minister had sabotaged good relations with the USA, and as a siege of Israel began, both sides dug in their heels. The political siege of Israel began to weaken Israel’s ability to conduct its affairs. Israel’s ministers and generals were prevented from travel abroad for fear of arrest. Boycotts of Israel, Israeli culture and Israeli products around the world began in earnest. Israel’s enemies tightened the siege, accusing Israel of war-crimes, genocide, apartheid, and any other crime that they could think of. The few friendly Muslim nations began to undo the friendship.

Meanwhile, vindicated against the other conference, Bar Ami started his own Israel conference. His conference, he proclaimed, was for peace, and had the stamp of approval of the President. People flocked to hear him. He garnered support from senators and congressmen, from rabbis and heads of large Jewish organizations. He took out expensive ads around the country critical of Israel, and the other Israel conference. He was invited to exclusive meetings at the White House and quoted in newspapers and on TV. He published op-eds and established offices around the country, and on college campuses.

However, soon it became apparent to supporters in congress and around the country that Bar Ami was more of a liability than an asset. His rhetoric seemed to line-up with the rhetoric of those waging the siege against Israel. Bar Ami’s standing with the President began to fade, and his conference drifted further and further to the middle, trying to stake out positions proved their were still pro-Israel. The President, realizing that he lost support of the other Israel conference, and the community of Israel supporters, started to reexamine his own stance towards the Israeli Prime Minister, hoping to gain their allegiance.

Bar Ami’s conference it was discovered had been funded by well known critics and enemies of Israel. He denied it at first, but then it was discovered that major funding came from dubious sources. Bar Ami lost more and more support even from his advisers and financial backers. His influence withered and he was no longer welcome in the halls of the great President.

The Siege of Israel meanwhile tightened. International activists set out to breach Israel’s borders, delivering aid to Israel’s enemies. Israel botched the defensive raid, and further added to her international isolation. As the isolation tightened, divisions within Israel grew stronger between those who believed Israel should unilaterally create a new state on their borders, and those who argued for the status-quo. The animosity kept the reining Prime Minister in office even after hundreds of thousands marched in the street against his government.

The President decided to forgo both the advice of either conference, and forge his own way, continuing to alienate them both, the Israeli public, and supporters of Israel. All the nations major opinion makers aligned against him, except for the New Amsterdam Times. The Times published critical op-eds of Israel and laying the failure of a peaceful future at her doorstep.

In Israel, the Prime Minister began to make concessions to maintain his position. He appointed advisers to sort out the internal mess of no housing. He hired outside consultants to help break the political siege. Those maintaining the siege were handed another political victory as they could portray that Israelis were more concerned about their own expensive housing, then they were of the Palestinians whose homes they were supposedly wrecking.

Soon Bar Ami’s conference was disbanded, torn apart by internal struggles between far leftists and centrists. The other conference grew more powerful than before, and teamed up with other gentile conferences all trying to aid the besieged nation of Israel.

The President was reelected after defeating a former governor from Alaska. He made a trip to the middle east and spoke more about peace and democracy, as democratic reforms soon gave way to Islamist regimes. Israel elected a new prime minister who promised to end the siege. The siege continued to get worse and worse, causing all but the staunchest supporters to withdraw their support for fear of siding with the enemy of peace. The boycotts worsened. The hatred of Israel grew and spread from college campuses into mainstream life, and Israel became a pariah of the nations.

Then a prophet arose in Israel who proclaimed that they were the long awaited Messiah. The Messiah made peace between the waring sides in Israel. The enemies put down their weapons and rhetoric and began to work together. As the internal strife lessened, the Messiah came to the United Nations and proclaimed that a unified Israel would no longer bow to the nations of the world, but would help free the billions of people in the world living under totalitarian regimes, and political slavery.

The totalitarian regimes of the world trembled and balked. The President and the Israeli Messiah won the noble peace prize, and then teamed up with the Dalai Lama, Matisyahu, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and Madonna to make a huge peace concert in Jerusalem.

Seeing that political and social freedom was but a revolution away - the oppressed peoples of the world realized that Israel was not the enemy, but her champion. Their eyes were opened and they saw that America was not the great Satan, but a substantial source of trade, income, and action movies. They rebelled and cast off their totalitarian rulers and elected representative democracies.

The Messiah established peace in the world, built a mansion in a unified and peaceful Jerusalem, and played golf with the now former President on occasion. Tour buses of Jewish young Americans now included a stop at the Messiahs house, and returned to campuses and communities that no longer hated Israel or the Jews.

And then I woke up and realized it was all a dream.

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August 4, 2011 | 7:22 am

The Day The Music Didn’t Die

Posted by Rabbi Yonah Bookstein

Clockwise: Ravid, Matisyahu, Fools Gold, Idan,

In the course of one week in Greater LA, Matisyahu will play three shows, Yemen Blues at least two shows, and Idan Raichel three shows.

Turns out that three of the biggest Jewish artists, a Hebrew Trifecta, will be performing on the same night, Thursday, Nov. 4th — Matisyahu in Ventura, Idan in the Valley, and Yemen at the Skirball. And each show will be packed to capacity.

Lastly, let’s not forget the Afro-pop sound of Fools Gold, led by two Israeli Americans who sing in Hebrew, headliners at Jewlicious Festival in February, who played Wednesday night at the Greek.

Matisyahu’s show Wednesday night in LA featured cameos by Ravid Kahalani, the leader of Yemen Blues, and Yehuda Solomon, lead singer and co-founder of the Israeli band Moshav, who are now based in LA.

All in LA, chabibi. And all the same week.

The sensationalist rumors of the death of Jewish music are just fiction, and the music plays on. The crowds live on. The creative essence of Jewish peoplehood lives on.

The 1,000 people at the show Wednesday night at Club Nokia cheered as Matisyahu retrieved his yarmulka after stage diving into the crowds. They roared when Ravid’s lofty Yemenese notes pierced the night, when Yehudah’s Arabic and Hebrew chanting mesmerized, and when Matis belted out “Jerusalem if I forget you.”

The crowd Wednesday night was part Birthright reunion, part downtown LA, part hipster and part gangster, unity and diversity. Hundreds of Jews of all ages packed into the club to see the most famous orthodox Jew in the world today. Dancing, singing, and swinging his peyos at one point, Matisyahu was the convener.

It’s good to see that the music has not died, that Jewish organizations and popular venues are able to book shows which speak to our youth just fine.

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Yonah Bookstein, a leading voice of the next generation of American Jewry, is an internationally recognized expert in Jewish innovation, founder of the Jewlicious Festival, and executive rabbi at JConnectLA. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiYonah