Practice Accepting without Forgetting
It is much easier to tolerate suffering if prior to the experience you mentally visualize yourself in the negative situation and practice accepting it.
Love Yehuda Lave
A beautiful story of Courage and survival
Yesterday, I told the story with the video of how the Polish people burned and murdered their Jewish neighbors in Poland in 1941.
Today, I received this video on the multi-million dollar Jewish museum that has been opened in Poland. Obviously, some well meaning Jews forgot that the money should have been spent in Israel on the museum instead of rewarding Poland with our history and encouraging Poles to stay in Poland in stead of coming to Israel. What a kiddush Hashem it would have been instead of building it there. The end of the piece asks for contributions. I think it is a shell without a heart and needs to come to Israel as we celebrate our rebirth in the land.
Love Yehuda Lave
But perhaps the most poignant song emerging out of the mass exodus from Europe was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". The lyrics were written by Yip Harburg. He was the youngest of four children born to Russian Jewish immigrants. His real name was Isidore Hochberg and he grew up in a Yiddish speaking, Orthodox Jewish home in New York.
Together, Hochberg and Arluck wrote "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which was voted the 20th century's number one song by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Read the lyrics in their Jewish context and suddenly the words are no longer about wizards and Oz, but about Jewish survival: Famous scene from the original Wizard of Oz movie when the Dorthy and the gang meet the Wizard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amclN9RG49c
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tLeFIEg4z7U&feature=share%20%20Sound
At the 2014 Oscars, they celebrated the 75th anniversary of the release of the "Wizard of Oz" by having Pink sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow",
But what few people realized, while listening to that incredible performer singing that unforgettable song, is that the music is deeply embedded in the Jewish experience.
It is no accident, for example, that the greatest Christmas songs of all time were written by Jews. For example, "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was written by Johnny Marks and "White Christmas" was penned by a Jewish liturgical singer's (cantor) son, Irving Berlin.
But perhaps the most poignant song emerging out of the mass exodus from Europe was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". The lyrics were written by Yip Harburg. He was the youngest of four children born to Russian Jewish immigrants. His real name was Isidore Hochberg and he grew up in a Yiddish speaking, Orthodox Jewish home in New York.
The music was written by Harold Arlen, a cantor's son. His real name was Hyman Arluck and his parents were from Lithuania.
Together, Hochberg and Arluck wrote "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which was voted the 20th century's number one song by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
In writing it, the two men reached deep into their immigrant Jewish consciousness - framed by the pogroms of the past and the Holocaust about to happen - and wrote an unforgettable melody set to near prophetic words.
Read the lyrics in their Jewish context and suddenly the words are no longer about wizards and Oz, but about Jewish survival:
*********************
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can't I?
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?
****************
The Jews of Europe could not fly. They could not escape beyond the rainbow. Harburg was almost prescient when he talked about wanting to fly like a bluebird away from the "chimney tops". In the post-Auschwitz era, chimney tops have taken on a whole different meaning than the one they had at the beginning of 1939.
Pink's mom is Judith Kugel. She's Jewish of Lithuanian background. As Pink was belting the Harburg/Arlen song from the stage at the Academy Awards, I wasn't thinking about the movie. I was thinking about Europe's lost Jews and the immigrants to America.
I was then struck by the irony that for two thousand years the land that the Jews heard of "once in a lullaby" was not America, but Israel. The remarkable thing would be that less than ten years after "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was first published, the exile was over and the State of Israel was reborn.
Perhaps the "dreams that you dare to dream really do come true"
Here is the original song with Judy Garland from the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U016JWYUDdQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U016JWYUDdQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amclN9RG49c
A great Ted Talk by the son of the murderer of Rabbi Meir Kahane
Don't blame the son for the Father's actions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po2UIdn2ZU0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po2UIdn2ZU0
Watch: One Immigrant - One Inspiring Story
Arutz Sheva spoke with Yehuda
Arutz Sheva spoke with Yehuda Gerlitz from Calgary, Canada, who arrived in Israel as part of one of the group flights that Nefesh B'Nefesh organizes throughout the year.
"We felt the calling to be in the land [of Israel]," he said, reflecting on his family's decision to leave Canada for Israel.
"I read a book by an author named Jim Collins, who wrote a book called 'Good to Great', and he said that good is the enemy of best, and I think that this is the case here: This is the best place for us to be," added Gerlitz.
--
