September 26, 2022
Author(s): Rabbi Wes Gardenswartz,
Rosh Hashanah, Day 1
September 26, 2022 — 1 Tishrei 5783
Setting Your Hallelujah Free
Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA
In October 1973, singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen was hating his life. He struggled with depression. He struggled with drugs like acid and LSD. He had had a child with a woman to whom he was not married, and he struggled with monogamy. His creativity was stymied. He couldn’t write. He couldn’t find joy in performing. At 39 he felt he was past his prime, that he should retire. In his own words, that he should “shut up.”
As Leonard Cohen was in the throes of his mid-life crisis, Israel was attacked on Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973. Israel was unprepared for this war. The initial weeks were brutal. Israel’s air force, so dominant six years earlier, was dramatically undermined by new Russian anti-aircraft missiles. Israeli ground troops suffered horrendous casualties.
These two stories—Leonard Cohen’s personal crisis, and Israel’s national crisis—came together because somehow, in the midst of the war, Leonard Cohen decided to go to Israel. The day he arrived, he went to a Tel Aviv café to ponder his next steps. Just then, a group of Israeli singers walked by. One of the singers, named Ilana Rovina, recognized him. Are you Leonard Cohen? I am. What are you doing in Israel? I don’t know, I’m not sure, but I think I will go to a kibbutz. Why don’t you join us? We are going to the Sinai to sing to the fighters. We’d love you to join us. I don’t have a guitar.
This episode is captured in a fabulous new book written by Canadian Israeli journalist Matti Friedman called Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai. This troupe of singers was able to round up a guitar for Leonard Cohen, and off they went to an air force base in the Sinai called Hatzor. At Hatzor Leonard Cohen and fellow musicians performed two shows on that first day. Israeli soldiers were dying in battle every day. As Leonard Cohen sang, he wondered: am I singing now the last songs these soldiers will ever hear?
At the first show, he sang his familiar classics like Suzanne, Bird on the Wire, and So Long, Marianne. Then there was a break between performances. Something happened to Leonard Cohen during that break. He had felt not creative. He had felt blocked. He had felt past his prime. But during the break, unexpectedly and suddenly the lyrics and melody to a stunning new song just poured out of him. The song was called Lover Lover Lover. At the second performance, facing soldiers who were soon to go off to battle and who did not know if they would return, Leonard Cohen looked at them and sang:
Lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover
Come back to me
Lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover, lover
Come back to me
And may the spirit of this song
May it rise up pure and free
May it be a shield for you
A shield against the enemy
Cohen was a Kohen, a descendant of the priestly tribe that would bless Israel. He felt that his song could do for the soldiers what the priestly benediction did for ancient Israel: protect them from harm. He sang this prayerful song with real conviction, and it landed.
And so it would go. Day after day, in base after base, Leonard Cohen would sing to Israeli soldiers who worried that this might be their last song, and tragically all too often it was.
After the war, Cohen did not talk about his time in the Sinai. However, he did keep what turned out to be a 45 page type-written journal. It was never published, or even known about, until Matti Friedman discovered the existence of this lost journal while doing research for his new book. He received permission to publish excerpts.
Why am I telling you this odd tale on Rosh Hashanah? What does Leonard Cohen in the Sinai during the Yom Kippur War have to do with our Rosh Hashanah now?
Leonard Cohen was stuck, was depressed, was stymied. If we are stuck, how do we get unstuck? If we are depressed, how do we emerge from our depression? If we are feeling bad about our life, how do we find a new energy and a new purpose that can make us feel better about our life?
Leonard Cohen in the Sinai reminds us that one effective answer to all these questions is by helping somebody else. He writes in his journal: “I came to raise their spirits, and they raised mine.” Leonard Cohen did not write Lover, Lover, Lover after going to an artist’s workshop in Aspen, or after going to Canyon Ranch. He wrote it on a dusty air force base in between performances for soldiers who were fighting for their, and for their country’s, life. He got out of his rut by helping somebody else.
What is our version of this? How can we use our gifts to help somebody else? Whose spirits can we raise, which will in turn raise our own spirits?
There is one important detail about Leonard Cohen lifting up the spirits of Israeli soldiers that deserves extra attention. Leonard Cohen did not speak Hebrew. The soldiers did not speak English. The language gap was real. How did he connect with soldiers when they literally did not speak the same language?
The answer to this question is found in his song Anthem:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
The soldiers did not need to understand Cohen’s English; they understood his humanity in ways that transcended language. His songs were plaintive, wistful, melancholy, searching, seeking, because he was plaintive, wistful, melancholy, searching, seeking. He was not capable of a perfect offering. He had his cracks, but his cracks enabled him to connect with real people who had their own cracks. That’s why cracks let light in.
How can we use our cracks to let light in? How can we use our demons, our doubts, our torments, our struggles, to connect with and help other human beings who are going through similar things?
When light flows through our cracks to other human beings who have their own cracks, a beautiful healing can set in.
The years after the Yom Kippur War marked Leonard Cohen’s greatest creativity. Among the many hits he composed in this season was Hallelujah, perhaps his greatest song, and one of the greatest songs ever written. Hallelujah has been recorded by over 300 artists–one of the most broadly covered songs in the history of music. Artists as diverse as Justin Timberlake, Bon Jovi and the Canadian Tenors have all recorded their own version of this song.
Why? What explains the enduring appeal of Hallelujah? If you read its lyrics, Leonard Cohen is asking a simple question no one had ever asked before. King David is reputed to be the author of the Psalms. The most famous word in the Psalms is Hallelujah. Leonard Cohen’s simple question is: when did King David first come up with this word Hallelujah? When did he first exclaim it?
Leonard Cohen’s answer is surprising. David did not come up with Hallelujah at any of the highpoints of his life. Not when he slayed Goliath. Not when he was at the peak of his popularity. Not when he was made King. Rather, he came up with Hallelujah at the lowest of his low points. Leonard Cohen imagines the David who composed Hallelujah as being, in his phrase, “the baffled king” because he had just fallen in love with Bath Sheba and sent her life, her husband Uriah’s life, his own life, his family’s life, his kingship’s life, into a tailspin. What did I just do? I ruined my life. I ruined her life. I ruined my family’s life. I ruined my kingship. I sullied my reputation. I traded in everything for nothing. What’s wrong with me? It was just then, what’s wrong with me, that according to Leonard Cohen, David called out Hallelujah.
Hallelujah is not the song of victory of the unscathed. There is no unscathed. There is only scathed. Hallelujah is the song of strength sung by the scathed. After his lowest point, King David still sang Hallelujah. After his lowest point, Leonard Cohen still sang Hallelujah. Because they are all scathed, over 300 different artists still sing Hallelujah, and because we are all scathed, we still hear it.
Leonard Cohen teaches us that we could be in a rut, we could be in the middle of a depression, we could be struggling with our demons, we could have our cracks. And yet, there is still a Hallelujah in all of us, in each of us, waiting to come out.
In this new year let’s set our Hallelujah free. Get unstuck by helping somebody else. Use our cracks to let the light in. King David set his Hallelujah free. Leonard Cohen set his Hallelujah free. And so can we. Shana tova.