What is Ancient?

A brief, somewhat historical record of Kim Keumhwa's various shaman ritual roles can be seen here in a series of educational videos about world music and dance. The footage has obviously come from a variety of rituals staged prior to 1990s (when I first met her), from those in her Seoul residence shindang (sanctuary) to a village in the countryside. The annotation says "Shamanism is the ancient religion of Korea", but how can it be "ancient" if it's very much alive and well today. Why not use the word "timeless"?

In his essay Mu: A Reflection on Shamanism and Synthesis, Professor Heinz Insu Fenkl notes, "Shamanism is really about synthesis, about the brining together of things that might otherwise appear to be disparate: the world of the living and the world of the dead; the past, present, and future; the individual and the community; humans and animals; men and women; the person and the cosmos--and in every case, the synthesis creates a form of healing."

Why must it be "ancient" to have gravitas, not to mention value today?  Miguel Rivera, a great teacher-practitioner of Native American traditions, always reminds us that our ancestors are our future.

"Manshin: Ten Thousand Spirits" Filmmaker Understands Vitality of Tradition in Contempo Life

Park Chan-kyong in the Korea Herald: 

“The point is, we should really learn to look at our traditions in a different way,” Park said. “We are always talking about developing so-called ‘culture contents.’

“But we look down on and dismiss shamanism in spite of its rich artistic and cultural value. Pansori originates from gut, and morning prayers at modern protestant churches originate from shamanism.”

When asked why he is so drawn to gut, the filmmaker said it is the earnestness of those who do it. “People resort to gut when they are faced with something that is out of their control, such as a fatal illness. It really is their last resort,” said Park.

“They try everything they can to solve the issue, and they try gut when they feel completely helpless. So they are desperate and ardent. And it is that earnestness that makes gut an art. A really great art.”

Click here for an English language discussion about the film with great clips. 

Click here for another, more extensive article.

Book Review: From Lowly Metaphor to Divine Flesh: Sarah the Ashkenazi, Shabbatai Tsevi’s Messianic Queen and the Shabbatian Movement

From Lowly Metaphor to Divine Flesh: Sarah the Ashkenazi, Shabbatai Tsevi’s Messianic Queen and the Shabbatian Movement 

By Alexander Van der Haven  

(Menasseh ben Israel Institute Studies 7. Amsterdam: Joofd Historische Museum, University van Amsterdam, 2012.)

Historians, theologians, and sociologists have written extensively about the rise and fall of Shabbatai Tsevi (Tzvi), the seventeenth-century Turkish Jew whose aesthetic practices and charismatic charms ultimately seduced hundreds of thousands of followers (to this day!) in the Orient and Occident, into believing his messianic proclivities. In the pre-Twitter and pre-Facebook days, his high-profile rock-star lifestyle and ultimate apostasy by conversion to Islam turned the Jewish world like a gyroscopic dreidel. While scholars, particularly Gershom Scholem, have exhaustively studied his life and impact on mainstream Judaism, there is ample new digging to do into the past to explore the role of women, especially in Jewish spiritual life of the time. What better subject than the first (but not only) Mrs. Sabbatai Tsevi, aka Sarah “The Ashkenazi”?

Feminist studies posture that a woman is not usually behind ever successful man, but is more often in front or to his side, so we must at least appreciate Alexander Van der Haven’s scholarly gesture in focusing the premise of this monograph. Yet, we are hungry for the “mundane” facts about how she spent her days, who were her female acquaintances, what is it like to be the wife of the messiah, etc. In this case, the book will be disappointing. Perhaps Ada Rapoport-Albert’s Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666-1816 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. 2011, UK) will be a better option; it is definitely longer.

These were very fiery times, due in no small part to the pogroms and other massacres that befell the Jews of Europe. The book, however, also hints at alternative lifestyles, similar to free-love movements and predatory spiritual cults of the 1960s in the USA. There was no lack of people, particularly Jews and Moslems, and especially women, who were seeking and experiencing religious ecstasy from the Occident to the Orient. Disappointingly, however, this book seems more of a Kinsey Report about the impact of sexual behavior and reputation on the development of personal and social identity during this period.

Alas, if you want a juicy, chutzpah-dicke narrative – such found in every episode of the “The Real Housewives of ... Wherever” TV show, you are definitely out of luck. Today’s Hollywood media content is all character driven, and we certainly have the basics for a deep franchise, but we are left to our imaginations about the color of the bed silks or the wafting fragrances of the boudoir.

If there was ever a marriage “made in heaven”, theirs was it. By all accounts, (mostly he-ar say vs her-say) Sarah claimed to have been destined to marry the messiah, and about a year after their betrothal, March 13, 1664, Shabbatai declared himself as such, satisfying an urge from his own visions. In fact, what we are told as fact about Sarah, however, generally (no little black book) is that she had a wild, promiscuous life before she met Shabbatai. While they wed in the presence of a rabbi and witnesses, the relationship was never consummated with a sexual relationship. It might be inferred that Sarah agreed to this arrangement. It would be great if someone found letters or notes, perhaps like “My Man”, a piece by Paul Rudnick in The New Yorker, October 8, 2012, posing as a first person (anonymous was a woman) account by Mrs. Melissa Christ, Jesus’ "wife".

If this were Hollywood production, enter the Best Supporting Male Actor: Nathan, another “”Ashkenazi”, a king-maker type who proclaimed himself Elijah, herald of the messiah. Nathan not only wrangled Sarah’s confidence, but he began to manage and enrich Shabbatai’s messianic brand.

Perhaps the devil was and is still in the details when it comes to high-profile personalities. By all accounts, the Shabbatian movement did rock the Jewish world. It is no wonder that, despite the current proclamations and denials that the seventh Chabad-Lubavitcher Rebbe was THE one we have been waiting for since Tsevi, everyone is being cautiously optimistic. (And we must remember that it was Chaya Mushka Schneerson, his wife, who carried the bloodline.)

Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal Spring 2013 Volume 10 Number 1

ISSN 1209-9392

© 2013 Women in Judaism, Inc.

All material in the journal is subject to copyright; copyright is held by the journal except where otherwise indicated. There is to be no reproduction or distribution of contents by any means without prior permission. Contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors.

Sa-I-Gu (4-2-9) Remembering the "Kut for Harmony and Reconciliation" in Los Angeles

I will write more about this, but I wanted to remember to do so. On April 28, 2002, I produced in Los Angeles a kut, Korean shaman ritual, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the L.A. Riots.

The idea took 2 years to bloom, during which time I tried my best to inspire highly Christianized / Westernized Korean expat community about the traditional ways that villages of their root culture would reconcile differences. They really would hear nothing of it, rather waiting to have yet another round of exchange between distinguished people (men -- business leaders, pastors, civic officials and university professors) discussing it with another person (same profile) in an isolated, albeit "public" forum. Perhaps that is what started the problem ... lack of understanding one's roots. It took about 20 years for the Korean businesses to hire their closest neighbors -- El Salvadoran and Latino immigrants -- and give them progressively more trust-worthy positions in their stores ... from baggers to checkers. That's not what I'll write about, however.

Here's the article that ran in The Los Angeles Times the week before the event. It was the lead in the "Calendar" section usually reserved for the philharmonic, opera, big theatre and occasionally dance (if it is classical). More will follow, as will photos.

Meantime, too, here's one of the articles that I wrote about how I got into this thing in the first place ... It originally ran in Kyoto Journal and also Korean Culture, the latter a now-defunct publication of the Consulate General of Korea in Los Angeles. It's called "Old Ways in the New World".

Will the Thanks Ever End? Welcome-Taking in an Over-Appreciative World

“You Are Welcome!”  as a reply to even a heartfelt "Thank you" seems to be falling out of favor in this frenzied, informal, digital world. 

We hurriedly reply to the with yet another “No, thank YOU!”

Will the gratitude never end? 

By replying to “Thank you!” with  “No, thank you!” may seem polite enough, but it does not mark the completion of the exchange.

And it can be mistaken for, "No thanks to you!"

Grateful people are happier, healthier long after the leftovers are gobbled up, notes The Wall Street Journal. Yet, how do we know that those thanks have been received? Are we able to be gracious enough to receive them? It seems that in the days of virtual friendships and cyber-commuting the welcome mat has been replaced by the “send” button in a truly never-ending exchange of appreciation that may be full of stuffing.

Linguistics expert Lynne Murphy notes in her TEDx TED Talk that the British proclivity for the thankee to “Thank” the thanker back is usually due to the reality that no one else has anything more to say. In contrast, while Americans have been observed to have an overwhelming desire to show endless gratitude -- hence, “Thanksgiving” is a national holiday. Yet, she projects that most likely the practical depth of such appreciation is relatively shallow. She makes the point that the latter politeness behavior system is “especially addictive” in the digital world, such as Facebook. 

Are we being informal because we don’t know how to accurately measure the necessary formality a situation may call for?

What's the Big Deal?

The reply to “Thank you!” varies across cultures. In some cases it casts a shadow of humility on the donor, saying that the gesture really did not cause any significant loss or was not a burden. Examples of “It’s nothing” or “No big deal” or “No problem” include “De res” (Catalan), “Walang anuman” (Tagalog) “De rien” (French) and “Nincs mit” (Hungarian). Thanking someone in such a way that is disproportionate to the relationship can provoke resentment, guilt and even anger.

Other replies can be “misunderstood or even misused to exert control over the receiver!” notes researcher Jeffrey J. Froh, assistant professor of psychology at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., in The Wall Street Journal. Thus, “Please” as “Bitte schön” (German), “Bevakesha” (Hebrew), “Prego” (Italian), and “Prosze” (Polish), can be inferred that the gesture is one way, or as children say in the game of tag, “No tag backs!”. In other cases, the giving has been undertaken with the intention that it will promote pleasure, such as “Mi gusto” (Spanish) or “Gerdu svo vel” (Icelandic). The Danish “Selv tak” (Thanks yourself) and Swedish “Varsagod” (Be so good) makes the exchange more final.

          I Rest My Case ... 

Replying with “You’re welcome”, however, is unique It can be said, or conveyed through a gesture, such as a bow in Japan or holding palms touching as if in prayer that is offered in many Southeast Asian and other Buddhist cultures. There is often a break in the exchange during which time the cycle of give and acceptance is achieved. It promotes the idea that the recipient is literally welcomed into the exchange and deserving of our efforts. 

UPDATE: More recently heard: "No problem!" "It's all good." (Actually ... we don't know this and it sure doesn't feel like it is in 2025.)

THE MET GETS IT: THE PAST IS HERE TO STAY!

Congratulations go out to NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art to l(ink) the past and the present in their first exhibition of contemporary arts from China.

Imagine ... 


From the press announcement:

1. The first major exhibition of Chinese contemporary art ever mounted by the Metropolitan, Ink Art explores how contemporary works from a non-Western culture may be displayed in an encyclopedic art museum. OK. Confession
2. Presented in the Museum's permanent galleries for Chinese art, Great stuff from folks who know
3. the exhibition features artworks that may best be understood As if we need some guidance.
4. as part of the continuum of China's traditional culture. Oooooh! How exotic is this! Orientale
5. These works may also be appreciated Since it's likely that most Western folks have no idea why they would want to even care.
6. from the perspective of global art, Why not simply because it comes from a unique and very powerful culture.
7. but by examining them through the lens of Chinese Red or otherwise?
8. historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed Any more than any other works in the museum?
9. are revealed. How do you say "AB-RA-KA-DAB-RA! in Chinese?
10. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these artists' creative processes. Ah, so ... artists made this art ... Were they perhaps Chinese artists?

It has wonderful pieces in it.  Through April 6, 2014

Check out the website .. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/ink-art

Deep Dreideling

(originally published on www.opensiddur.org ... 

Every Jewish holy day, even Shabbat and the highest ones, we call forth all the 22 Hebrew Letters to join us in celebration. For those of us who study Kabbalah from within the realm of the Alef-Bet, Ḥanukah is unique in that we are given a magical tool with which to activate these signs and wonders.^[1]

The top-like dreidel / sevivon (literally, “spinner” in Yiddish and Hebrew, respectively) typically has four sides or sections, each one bearing a specific, single Letter from the collection: Nun, Gimmel, Hei and Shin. (Note: in contemporary Israel, the Shin has been supplanted by Peh, but here we are looking further back. How long? Hard to know, but more than 60 years for sure.)

We are told as children that this “toy” was used by the Maccabees to disguise their clandestine Torah study, despite the distinct prohibition against any Jewish ritual observance by the Greek oppressors. As we know the Maccabees ultimately rose up against all odds and defeated the Greeks, as their successors have done at other times. In fact, some people are taught that each of the four letters stands for four oppressors of the Jewish people: Nun (Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia); Hei (Haman of Persia); Gimel (Gog of Greece); and Shin (Se’ir who was identified with Esav and hence with Rome).

The Nes Gadol, great miracle, Haya Sham that happened there (or Haya Poh, “here” if we are in the Land of Israel) continues to happen for Jews who keep that dreidel spinning! There really are no spectators when it comes to dreidel.

Most people today are caught up in the mundane notion of dreidel as a seemingly benign amusement using the “rules” “put – and – take”, and even tying it to the tradition of giving Ḥanukah “gelt”, or coins (chocolate or otherwise). While children are the beneficiaries of intentionally simplified stories, trying to make adult sense of this one can lead one through a maze of minhagim (traditions) to a dead end, such as extreme "Major League Dredel" competitions — with Vegas-style stakes.

From a kabbalist viewpoint, however, one can think above and beyond the box of Sunday school sound-bites by asking the right questions — Why these four letters? Why put them on a top? We can find clues hidden in the Letters to know why and how the Maccabees were able to rededicate the Temple just by “playing” with a “toy”. May we have such capacity in our own time!

Whether made out of the Grecian clay soil or, most recently, molded Chinese plastic, spinning a dreidel with the left hand, the right understanding, clear kavanah (intention) and the appropriate blessing can be a transformative act; the dreidel becomes a magical tool. A dreidel enables us to take these four otiyot and niflaot, signs and wonders, in hand to create a stream of presence of the miraculous in our midst and reunite the four worlds.

We begin with Nun, signifying a place of internal rest. We retreat to a quiet, inner place where outer distractions cannot penetrate. By returning to “neutral” we make ourselves “empty” and ready to receive the wisdom and strength necessary to face the greater challenges. We are able to reclaim and renew ourselves for the work ahead. (Atzilut)

Gimmel, the third letter of the Alef-Bet, has the numerical number of 3, which is also the total value of the Letters that spell sheffa, the promise of abundance. Once we reach repose, we realize how much greater is our internal capacity to fully receive that abundance from the Great Source above. We have the strength to literally turn our ideas and dreams into reality here and now. (Briah)

The dreidel doesn’t spin itself. Each of us, in turn, must take hold of the dreidel at its axle handle, put its tip on the earth and spin it by adding our life force. With Hei guiding our hand we become that connectivity between above and below at a very specific point in time and space. (Yetzirah)

Everyone’s attention is fixed as the dreidel begins to spin. The growing excitement indicates that sheffa is whirling out from the center toward all who are captivated. The letters are now in full motion and returning to a single, blurry, formless pure essence. The Shin heralds the presence of the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of God, who will spread her protection (shomer) over us to help dispel the negativity that always hovers nearby anything hopeful. (Assiah)

May I achieve self-realization in the present moment, and
Fully receive the Shekhinah’s abundant protection.

Blessed are You,
Ruler of Time and Space,
Who directs us to spin the dreidel.

Amen.

The Answer is Blowin' on the Art: Calder @ LACMA

 I have been blowing on art  since XI  first encountered an Alexander Calder mobile at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Given the height and weight of the installation, it was unlikely that   I  would make any waves, but XI  wanted to have some way to interact with the art, especially given the hands-off rules of proper museum visitorship. It needed to move if it was to move me. For some reason, blowing on a van Gogh or other heavily textured work remains a reasonable encounter style to this day.

                                         The Calder retrospective “monographic” exhibition opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, “Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic”, gives one many reasons to blow, wink, wave and do all sorts of other seemingly harmless gestures toward his mobiles and stabiles, but the Frank O. Gehry installation keeps us at a reasonable distance along the periphery of some provocatively curved walls and barriers. The exhibition design, in fact, demonstrates Gehry’s infinite technical capacity to trump (almost) anything he is asked to wrap. L’arc de triumphe!

We think we “know” Calder because his work was the rage when most of the larger western contemporary art institutions were consolidating their collections. He seemed to animate beloved works of his contemporaries, Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, and Wassily Kandinsky to name just three. Given the materials, Calder is durable to say the least, and he seems to have an easy to grasp (no touching!!!) stylistic vocabulary: mostly black or white or primary colored discs, including modernist "kidney shaped "petals", dangling from black wires that have an uncanny resemblance to clothes hangers that propagate unchecked in one’s closet. 

Wondering whether his work has “held up over time, is not a useful question when viewing Calder in the 21^st Century. It serves more as a benchmark for how the viewer has changed since first encountering his work. We think we see his work everywhere, but in fact, it is his influence that has become ubiquitous.

There are many classic balancing acts in this exhibition supported by the Calder Foundation, on whose website there is a warning not to be fooled by what may look "like” a Calder. Thus, the exhibition’s historical perspective is helpful in examining the maestro's process, one that is decidedly influenced by his education in physics-based engineering. (I am also reminded of Hayao Miyazaki's latest and last film, The Wind Rises,  where science is reflected in the creation of something destined to live in the air that is also beautiful for beauty's sake.) 

The earliest Calder pieces on display present the opposite of what we think of as trompe d’oeil.

Several of the pieces incorporate a “frame”: either a   field in the background or just a perimeter surrounding space. In this town of various cinematic trompes d’scopes and IMAX screens, it is relaxing to watch Calder’s pieces “simply” float in front of a basically flat background. Gehry comments that the museum didn’t have a proper space in which to install the work. This inspired him to create unique curvaceous panels to divide the broad, open rectangular footprint of the Resnick Pavilion, but the arcs seem rather large wide sweeps. Nonetheless, there are shadows on surfaces that do allow the pieces to dance in and with the light.

Each of the 50 pieces in the exhibition has something unique to say. Schools of aimless fish and flocks of maniacal birds define the “empty” sky and water environments that we, land-based animals, can only enter with aid. There is a multi-colored humanoid skeletal piece that tries to leave the earth. A few pieces, such as Yucca (1941), cast shadows that would be fitting in any xeroscape garden in LA’s now history-making arid climate.

Calder has admirers throughout the world, including Japan. Un effet du japonais (1941) does not particularly reflect any more japonais – ness than others. The freestanding work with hints of mobile-ism resembles two "conjoined" giraffes whose necks actually do meet in mid-air!  The piece predates his first exhibition in Japan by more than three decades. According to the Foundation, the Pennsylvania USA native had no previous direct encounter with Japan prior to that.

Photo by author

What attracted my eastern sensibility much more is Escutcheon (1954), a relatively small stabile that might be a Sogetsu ikebana arrangement. It is hung close to the ceiling near two cast bronze table top pieces that resembled natural branches that might have caught the eye on a walk in the woods. One resembles a snake and the other, to me, harkens to Picasso's She Goat.

Calder also worked in natural materials, including wood. Gibraltar (1936, MOMA NYC), constructed out of Lignum vitae, walnut, steel rods and painted wood, is in the genre of his galaxies. (LACMA’s grand exhibition of the work of James Turrell is still on display, enabling one to enjoy more-naked eye celestial observations.) 

The "milky way-like field that rings an island mountain is evocative of an image of Calder in his studio wearing a light visor at a rakish angle. Further, one of the elements, a piece of wood held aloft by a vertical rod, reminds me of a sotdae, Korean wooden spirit post topped by a simply rendered bird that is placed singly or in multiples at the entrance gate to a village to promote good harvest and luck.

I would never have had these insights when I blew on my first Calder. If his are the only "floaters" I see as I age, then I'll be very content. Today we have the capacity to do 3D printing, but if Calder had put a stylus on each of his discs and turned on the wind, we would have almost holographic creations. 

The answer may be Blowin' in the in the Wind, and Calder may be setting up the questions. It is not impossible to think that Calder's work takes me on a trip within the space inside my mind. I trust that he will continue to inform me about how “far” I’ve come.

For more information about Alexander Calder, I am happy to direct your attention to the wonderful resource Artsy! 

Encounters With Jewish Musical Traditions: Jewish Radio Programs

When I was growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, the "Bagels and Lox" and "Kippers 'n' Capers" were two Jewish music radio programs on Sunday mornings available on the fledgling fm channels. (It could have been "am" radio, but I think not.) 

Each offered a smorgasbord of music ranging from recordings of liturgical (Hebrew) and secular songs (Yiddish and Engilsh) of the great cantorial voices such as Yossele Rosenblatt, Moishe Oysher, Jan Peerce to Israel Music Festival winners, the latest pop sensations, such as Alan Sherman, and even a bit of shtick from the likes of "Mollie Goldberg" (aka Gertrude Berg who also had her own radio program, "The Goldbergs"), Belle Barth and Fanny Brice. The usual announcements of local events and a bit of banter between the music filled a half hour easily. Ads were from local restaurants and delis, haberdasheries promoting bar mitzvah wear (Krass Brother Men's Store on South Street was a favorite.), Jewish book and gift shop, etc.

There is nothing to be found online at this writing about this genre of radio. (You try going through the thousands of references to "bagels and lox" online!) It's a real shame.  I will continue to seek out more information in a strategic way, but here's a great sample of the types of music I heard from the Idelsohn Society.

The Way of Tea in L.A.: Chado Beyond Japan by Sochi Deutsch

The Way of Tea in L.A. www.thewayoftea.blogspot.com

Read the full 2013 article from L.A. Yoga / Find Bliss Magazine here

Sochi Deutsch

Photos by David Young-Wolff