Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

It seems only too appropriate as we near Rosh Hashana tonight (Friday night) and contemplate the past and coming year, that we consider Leonard Cohen’s version of the U’Netaneh Tokef prayer which he calls, Who by Fire?  Considering last year’s war on Gaza and the possibility of an Israel-Iran conflagration this year, “fire” seems an entirely apt element for us to consider:

And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,
Who in your merry merry month of May,
Who by very slow decay,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,
Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,
And who by avalanche, who by powder,
Who for his greed, who for his hunger,
And who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent, who by accident,
Who in solitude, who in this mirror,
Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand,
Who in mortal chains, who in power,
And who shall I say is calling

Thanks to Rabbi Brant Rosen for coming up with this brilliant video of Cohen performing the song live TV in 1989. The performance has an absolutely scorching solo by Sonny Rollins (alav ha-shalom) on sax which opens and closes the song (the closing solo is the real scorcher). This is righteous music, Jewish soul music.

Unless you are of a certain age, Story of Issac may be less well known to you. It is one of his earlier ones (it’s on Songs from a Room, which came out in 1969 during the height of the Vietnam war) and recounts the story of the Akedah as only Leonard Cohen can. Since we read the Akedah as the Torah reading for the second day of Rosh Hashana, I thought it appropriate to dig up the above video.

These are the critical lyrics sung with great passion and moral conviction:

You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
And you never have been tempted
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my fathers hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,
Forgive me if I inquire,
Just according to whose plan?
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
Man of peace or man of war,
The peacock spreads his fan.

When I was a UCLA grad student in the late 1970s and helping produce a campus Jewish culture festival, I approached Cohen’s manager as I thought he would be a perfect choice to do a concert for the festival. But then I heard he was actually a practicing Buddhist. At any rate, he was somewhere off living on a mountain in Greece at the time and the concert never happened.

Cohen has gotten himself into hot water by planning to perform at a concert in Israel in violation of the cultural boycott. He tried to make amends by offering a concert in Ramallah, but the Palestinians weren’t buying and it was cancelled. He decided to go ahead with the Israeli concert and donate the proceeds to Amnesty. But when Palestinians protested this move, that group backed out. So Cohen is in the unlikely position of wanting to support Israel-Palestine peace financially in order to soothe his guilty conscience. But no one will have his lucre.

Leonard Cohen has always been an artist who stood, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes gracefully, on the cusp of political consciousness and personal, spiritual (almost mystical) introspection. It is one of the most compelling aspects of his songwriting and persona. You can even hear this in the lyrics of Who by Fire and Story of Isaac, in which he comments knowingly and wryly on humanity’s moral failings.

But the problem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is far too gross and in your face for the likes of Cohen. His medium is subtle, knowing lyrics and he is the coolest of the cool. Unfortunately, when two peoples war for as long as Israelis and Palestinians have–there is no longer any subtlety. It’s all death, all blood.

Cohen is not an artist who feels comfortable choosing sides. His outlook is far too diffuse for that. He doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed as being pro or anti-anything except humanity in general terms. Yes, this is frustrating for those fighting a political battle to the death. But Cohen chooses not to join the fight. He observes it as an artist.

In all this I’m trying to give my impression of what may be at work in his mind. I am not justifying or defending. But despite any criticism that may be leveled, it doesn’t lessen him, in my view, as a seminal performer who embodies a powerful Jewish ethos in his lyrics.

So to Leonard Cohen and all my readers: Shana tovah u’metukah. A good and sweet New Year and may the peacock spread his fan.