Last week I attended a terrific conference put on by emPower Music and Arts. The mission of this organization is to promote positive music. (They even award annual Posi Awards in categories like, best healing song, best personal transformation song, best social action song). It is a great group of people, an impressive array of talent and I believe, a very important cause.
As many of you know, I have been pushing my music toward positive thinking for a few years now. I try not to write songs that complain or sound desperate; and, at the same time, try not to sound fluffy and shallow (although I have suffered some of those accusations in various reviews). Anyway, as I listened to the music being performed at the PosiAwards, I was struck by a certain discomfort that I felt and didn't know how to deal with.
No matter how my music comes across, especially if it sounds secular, I write it through the spiritual lens of my Judaism. It is my only point of reference. What I didn't expect to feel was such a strong sense of purpose driven specifically from my Jewish beliefs. For example, when I listened to someone else sing a song about love (spiritual, not romantic) when they professed to have no religious beliefs, it made me feel awkward. How did they arrive at such a strong conviction? Why did I need them to have faith in order to hear their message? I have been a part of many interfaith events with not an inkling of discomfort; why then, when faith was taken out of the equation, did I feel so unsure about it all?
I realized that as much as I like to say I am against the dogma of religion, I, myself, have not been able to escape it. In fact, not only have I not escaped it, I subscribe to it!!! It was hard for me to take God out of the equation and talk about the universe as if God is only energy, or a force. I believe in a God who obligates me to conduct myself in a certain way, who expects humankind to abide by laws of right and wrong, who loves through teaching, who is the Source of Good in the world.
What I need to work on is grasping that there are many roads to the same destination; that as much as I love to study Torah, words are ultimately an invention. A human-made invention. No word can adequately describe the essence of God. Words can imply, and words can organize our understanding, but they cannot BE God. Organized religion, with all of its constraints, dogma and dysfunction has served me and millions of others well in that it has led us to love, peace, grace and humility. But peace and love can be arrived at through new thought as well as old religion. Wow, I have just stepped clearly out of my comfort zone.
I believe in God, and the only way I know how to live out those beliefs is through Judaism. However, now more than ever, I am firmly convinced that Judaism is one of many paths to wholeness. The lesson I learned from emPower is that all religion is dogmatic and the dogma is OK if it leads to wholeness and good. If the dogma causes us to be divisive, pitting one against the other, we have clearly mis-interpretted its (and our) purpose. Of all the things God created, I do not believe God created enemies. We have to take responsibility for that one. The failures of religion are not due to God's intentions, but to our lack of understanding.
Each human must find a path to peace and wholeness. As much as it makes me uncomfortable to say it, religion is invented, not created. Judaism is what I know best and how I have chosen to live--it's right for me. We must use the teachings of our religions or "new thought" to spiral upward and be aware that there are many paths to holiness, we need but walk one.
As many of you know, I have been pushing my music toward positive thinking for a few years now. I try not to write songs that complain or sound desperate; and, at the same time, try not to sound fluffy and shallow (although I have suffered some of those accusations in various reviews). Anyway, as I listened to the music being performed at the PosiAwards, I was struck by a certain discomfort that I felt and didn't know how to deal with.
No matter how my music comes across, especially if it sounds secular, I write it through the spiritual lens of my Judaism. It is my only point of reference. What I didn't expect to feel was such a strong sense of purpose driven specifically from my Jewish beliefs. For example, when I listened to someone else sing a song about love (spiritual, not romantic) when they professed to have no religious beliefs, it made me feel awkward. How did they arrive at such a strong conviction? Why did I need them to have faith in order to hear their message? I have been a part of many interfaith events with not an inkling of discomfort; why then, when faith was taken out of the equation, did I feel so unsure about it all?
I realized that as much as I like to say I am against the dogma of religion, I, myself, have not been able to escape it. In fact, not only have I not escaped it, I subscribe to it!!! It was hard for me to take God out of the equation and talk about the universe as if God is only energy, or a force. I believe in a God who obligates me to conduct myself in a certain way, who expects humankind to abide by laws of right and wrong, who loves through teaching, who is the Source of Good in the world.
What I need to work on is grasping that there are many roads to the same destination; that as much as I love to study Torah, words are ultimately an invention. A human-made invention. No word can adequately describe the essence of God. Words can imply, and words can organize our understanding, but they cannot BE God. Organized religion, with all of its constraints, dogma and dysfunction has served me and millions of others well in that it has led us to love, peace, grace and humility. But peace and love can be arrived at through new thought as well as old religion. Wow, I have just stepped clearly out of my comfort zone.
I believe in God, and the only way I know how to live out those beliefs is through Judaism. However, now more than ever, I am firmly convinced that Judaism is one of many paths to wholeness. The lesson I learned from emPower is that all religion is dogmatic and the dogma is OK if it leads to wholeness and good. If the dogma causes us to be divisive, pitting one against the other, we have clearly mis-interpretted its (and our) purpose. Of all the things God created, I do not believe God created enemies. We have to take responsibility for that one. The failures of religion are not due to God's intentions, but to our lack of understanding.
Each human must find a path to peace and wholeness. As much as it makes me uncomfortable to say it, religion is invented, not created. Judaism is what I know best and how I have chosen to live--it's right for me. We must use the teachings of our religions or "new thought" to spiral upward and be aware that there are many paths to holiness, we need but walk one.