Thank you my God!

Beethoven puts this "thank you" into music. He entitles a passage of his 15th string quartet (opus 132): "A Convalescent's Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Divinity" (Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit). The entire third movement of this quartet, one of the last ones, composed one year after the creation of the Ninth Symphony, is a long meditation interrupted with moments of joy expressed by a faster tempo and a more joyful tone. The convalescent who thanks God is none other than Beethoven himself, who had been seriously ill in the months that preceded the creation of the work, in September 1825. We must listen to these brilliant fifteen minutes as a prayer. Here is the version – probably one of the best – of the Alban Berg Quartet.

Fiodor

Yom HaShoah 2015

By thousands, by millions, all of them were denied their humanity, were crushed by the dreadful Nazi death machine. Each of them, however, had a name, a face, had dreams; each of them loved, laughed, cried, hoped… Golda and Jacob, my paternal grandparents, Esther, Sala, Adela, David, Lajbek and Azyk, my aunts and uncles, who lived in Poland, were massacred at the end of 1942, a few months after my birth...

In April 1946, my father, who had settled in Belgium, received news from Poland by a distant cousin: “According to word-of-mouth information, all the members of our families were massacred by the Germans. In September 1942, an epidemic of typhus occurred in Losic, and Fradla, the mother of David B., my cousin Hindla M. and many other people from Blaszki died. At the end of December, the women, the children and the old people were massacred on the spot, but the young people were transferred to heavy work or death camps. And, according to the information received to this point, no one of your family nor mine asable to escape that city or save themselves in another way. All were killed like innocent sheep”.

Our memories are their graves.

Fiodor

Passover and Easter

Cosimo di Lorenzo Rosselli (1439-1507) - Crossing of the Red Sea
Rome, Sixtine Chapel

This year, our Jewish brothers will celebrate Passover from April 3rd in the evening until April 10th. Western Christians will celebrate Easter on Sunday April 5th and Eastern Christians on April 12th.

It is impossible to understand Easter without referring to Passover. It is so true that, in the Roman Catholic Church, during the Easter Vigil, the reading of chapter 14 of the Book of Exodus -- the crossing of the Red Sea by the sons of Israel under the leadership of Moses -- is compulsory.

Matthias Grünewald (1475-1528)
Resurrection
Colmar Issenheim Altarpiece

Easter, just like Passover, is a memorial. The crossing of the Red Sea is anticipated by a sign -- the blood on the lintels and doorposts (Exodus 12) -- and celebrated in a rite which makes it present: the feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover meal. Similarly, the death and resurrection of Christ is anticipated in a sign -- the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples -- and celebrated in a rite that makes it present: the Easter Eucharist.

I am pleased to mark these festivities with music. Here is a beautiful page for piano and cello of Ernest Bloch from his "Jewish Life", by Wassily and Nikolay Gerassimez, and a magnificent performance of the Easter Oratorio of JS Bach by John Eliot Gardiner.  

Dear Jewish readers, I wish you a beautiful and happy holiday of Passover חג פסח שמח

Dear Christian readers, I wish you a beautiful and holy Easter

Fiodor

An atheism which glorifies God

"There are atheisms that exist for the glory of God", asserted Fr. Albert Chapelle, a Jesuit, in a remarkable course on theodicy he gave at the Institut d’Etudes Théologiques (IET) of Brussels. What he meant by this is that the rejection of God is often the result of an image of Him given by those who claim to follow and serve Him, which is nothing more than a caricature.

What Fr. Chapelle claimed appears to be finding a new illustration in the Muslim world. Many observers are detecting a profound movement of rejection of religion in the Arab world. Such is the case especially among the younger generations behind the uprisings of the "Arab spring", so quickly seized upon by Islamists.

The savage atrocities perpetrated by the Islamic State and its Caliph have the power of simply disgusting those who, even if raised in an environment of Muslim devotion, discover the grinning face of the god whom these monsters believe they are serving.

A recent article published on the Free Arab website provides an interesting analysis of the phenomenon. Another interesting article, in French, is published in a Lebanese newspaper and summarized by the Courrier International.

From my point of view, that of a Christian, atheism is obviously not the ultimate answer, but if it means to be a step in getting rid of brutish pseudo-religious idols, it is welcome.

Fiodor

Eight minutes in Paradise

I lack the time to write somewhat thoughtful texts. But I try to find short moments of spiritual "breath" through music.

Here is one, found in Schubert (which will not surprise those who know me).

It is a fragment of an unfinished piano sonata (in F sharp minor, No. 8, D 571). Schubert would have written it in 1817 (he was then 20 years).

All the art and the genius of Schubert are there. This is the "wanderer" dreamily walking in the countryside. It is nostalgic without being sad, full of energy and restraint at the same time, with an extraordinary thematic richness...

I find particularly beautiful a passage that starts at 3’20 and lasts about a minute. It’s like thoughts that rise and come back, then leave in another direction, unfinished and as unsettled…

Such music can reconcile you with yourself and with the world.

I have said enough: now just listen

Fiodor

Music leads to God

A few days ago, I finished reading an important book of which I shall have to speak again: Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel^(*).

Passing over the principal topic of the book, which addresses the history and future of the State of Israel, I would like to draw attention to a passage without direct link to this theme. It concerns music and what it produces in the heart and soul of people. The experience which the author evokes touches upon one I have made repeatedly: finding peace and joy, and even the desire for God, while listening to a musical work. “Good” music can stir up a sense of God’s mystery. No image can depict it; it is nothing attainable by reasoning. It is a beauty that pierces the heart and the soul. 

The beginnings of Ein Harod kibbutz

In this passage, Ari Shavit harks back to Ein Harod’s kibbutz, in the time of the pioneers, in 1926. The kibbutzim are almost all young men and women from Europe, uprooted and having put aside their religious tradition. One day, the great violinist Jascha Heifetz comes to give a concert. Here is how Shavit reports the event.

From day one, the rough Labor Brigade pioneers of Ein Harod have had a soft spot for all things musical. One of them has an explanation. “The playing of classical music fills the void in our lives”, he writes.

The time of music is the only time that our communal dining room resembles a place of worship. There is a reason for that. Leaving God behind caused a terrible shock to us all. It destroyed the basis of our lives as Jews. This became the tragic contradiction or our new life. We had to start from scratch and build a civilization from the very foundation. Yet we had no foundation to build on. We had no Ultimate. Above us there were blue skies and a radiant sun, but no God. That’s the truth we couldn’t ignore and cannot ignore for a moment. That is the void. And music for us is an attempt to fill the void. When the sounds of violins fill our dining hall, they reacquaint us with life’s other dimension. They raise the deepest, forgotten feelings buried in all of us. Our eyes close, turn inward, and an aura almost of sanctity enwraps us all.

This "aura of sanctity" recalls the cloud that marked the divine presence, the Shekinah, during the exodus of the People of God (cf. Exodus 40: 34-38): a tangible sign which manifests an invisible presence, just as the sound of music striking our ears and opening up a window on the infinite.

To put theory into practice, here is Mendelssohn’s violin concerto played by Jascha Heifetz, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. The recording is old (1949) and the style is a bit old-fashioned according to current tastes, but just let yourself be moved by the music


 

Fiodor

(*) Ari SHAVIT, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, New York, Spiegel & Grau, 2013, 450 p.

The one kills, the other one heals…

Even from this torn Middle East, some comforting information has arrived.

A few days ago, we heard a representative of the moderate Syrian opposition, Dr. Kamal al-Labwani, thank Israel for the medical care provided to Syrians wounded in the fighting which rage in this country: "This moving humanitarian gesture is an opening for rapprochement between the two peoples and hope for peace on quieter days".

And then a few days ago, a friend drew my attention to the moving testimony of an Israeli Arab physician, Dr. Ahmed Eid. Professor Eid who evokes how he did surgery on a young Jewish soldier shot at close range by an Arab. This testimony was published by the Times of Israel.

I particularly underline a sentence of Professor Ahmed Eid: "I feel part of this state, and I get irritated with those who doubt it (…) I am Israeli and I don’t need to prove it. It’s presented as a dilemma: We’re Arabs, how do we feel? My loyalty to the state is in no doubt.”

Fiodor