Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on October 31, 2011 by Anton L. Gershteyn
PLEASE NOTE:
I was taking an ulpan course in August naively hoping it would prepare me for Pardes. I was really happy to be roommates with Andrew Lustig (a fellow Pardes student) back then. I remember one evening he told me that despite the fact I had decided to quit Art and my attempts at expressing myself in that field one year ago – “the process of challenging the mind and the beliefs would really influence the ability to express things in a new way and would be a reason for inspiration again” (not an exact quote, but the way I understood it).
Placebo, 1998
That evening he really challenged me with his idea. For some reason I suddenly recalled all the verses of a song (read: poem) I really liked when I was 15 years old. This wonderful song was recorded by the amazing British artist Brian Molko and his band Placebo, which was very much influenced and actually unofficially produced (at least the first 2 albums) by a living genius: David Bowie. The song is called “I know”(2). The first Verse and the Chorus say:
Brian Molko & David Bowie, 1996
I know, you love the song but not the singer
I know, you’ve got me wrapped around your finger
I know, you want the sin without the sinner(3)
I know
I know
I know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know, the last in line is always called a bastard
I know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know
I know
I was very skeptical about what Andrew said. Now I know he was right. My past has “caught me up as I ran faster” from myself, shutting myself down, as no artistic expression was working for me any more. Poems and rhymes, and melodies, and pictures would start bombarding my mind more intensively each day, as I was delving deeper into theological investigations.
A couple of days ago I missed classes to write an article (which did not happen because the very next morning I read it with “fresh eyes”, and I deleted the file). But I have to admit now – something magical happened that day. Some dots between my intellectual approaches and my poetic feelings were connected in a very straight way:
During the last several weeks I have been thinking a lot about the distinctions between “soul”, “spirit”, “emotions” and “mind” (intellect). We use this terminology a lot in our classes, but have never clarified these differences… I was reading a number of Greek and Roman religious, philosophical and poetical texts and a particular image seemed really strange to me – a picture of a “swallow” as a metaphor for one’s “soul” and “spirit”(4). I also knew that in a sense it was very much a visual definition of some very similar ideas and allusions in modern culture as well.(5)
In several hours, taking a break from my research, and despite my slow internet connection, I decided to watch some of my favorite channels online: Discovery Science and National Geographic. A strange coincidence occurred – both of the channels were broadcasting programs on ornithology. You know: birds, their species, their habits etc. And some scientific facts about “swallows” surprisingly spoke to my spiritual revelations… The tension between the natural facts about this particular specie of bird, and the overwhelming attempt to use it as a metaphor for our “souls and spirits” (throughout the Mediterranean/ Middle East region) appeared to be much deeper to me than it had been. That was finally the inspiration for my new up-to-date poetic approach. When you see a textual link “swallow” (read: soul).
Swallows build their nests
On slopes and roofs
Because they can not fly up from the ground…
If the bird finds oneself on the ground, struck by wind or rain,
She dies.(6)
Footnotes:
(1) Song by Pixies from the album Surfer Rosa
Oh – stop
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there’s nothing in it
And you’ll ask yourselfWhere is my mind [3x]
Way out in the water
See it swimmin’I was swimmin’ in the Caribbean
Animals were hiding behind the rocks
Except the little fish
But they told me, he swears
Tryin’ to talk to me, coy koi.Where is my mind [3x]
Way out in the water
See it swimmin’ ?With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
If there’s nothing in it
And you’ll ask yourselfWhere is my mind [3x]
Oh
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Oh
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Oh
(2) A song by Palcebo from the album Placebo
I know, you love the song but not the singer
I know, you’ve got me wrapped around your finger
I know, you want the sin without the sinner
I know
I knowI know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know, the last in line is always called a bastard
I know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know
I knowI know, you cut me loose from contradiction
I know, I’m all wrapped up in sweet attrition
I know, it’s asking for your benediction
I know
I knowI know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know, the last in line is always called a bastard
I know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know
I knowI know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know, the last in line is always called a bastard
I know, the past will catch you up as you run faster
I know
I know.”
“…Placebo somehow often make me even more depressed whilst simultaneously making me sickly happy in that depression. It’s a phenomenon I don’t quite understand. “
“I would have sex with and to this song!!!!!!!!!!! “
(3) In my opinion this very central line is a very prominent post-modern allusion on many religious classic moral motives. I recall a very profound class David Levin-Kruss gave in Autumn 2011, titled “Hate the Sin, Not the Sinner”. The poetic response to this paradigma is an example of a perfect decadent artistic intertextuality “I know, you want the sin without the sinner”. These are the textual supports David Levin-Kruss offered us:
Tehilim 104:35
May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless the L-rd, O my soul. Hallelujah.
Brachot 10a
There were once some highwaymen in the neighborhood of R. Meir who caused him a great deal of trouble. R. Meir accordingly prayed that they should die. His wife Beruria said to him: How do you make out that such a prayer should be permitted? Because it is written: Let hatta’im cease? is it written hot’im? It is written hatta’im! Further, look at the end of the verse: and let the wicked men be no ore. Since thi sins will cease, there will be no more wicked men! rather pray for them that they should repent, and there will be no wicked. He did pray for them and they repented.
(4) A genus of swallow has the name “Progne”, a form of Procne. The story is told by Apollodorus in Bibliotheke III, xiv, 8; and by Ovid in the Metamorphoses VI, 424–674.
(5) “…I actually wondered about this myself (the meaning of a “swallow” tattoo), and by chance a homeless person in London approached me, wanting to sell “the big issue” (a magazine). He had two swallows tattooed on his neck, so I asked him the meaning, and he said; “It’s kind of rude” and he whispered it to me, because my girl was with me and he was a gentleman. He said it meant “Live long and live hard”.* Read more.
* “Live long a hard” is obviously rather more of a spiritual goal than a physical process. These spiritual models, transmitted through very physical metaphors are very common for the most “romantic” and folklore orientated classes such as sailors, homeless, hustlers – all the kind of voyagers “living on the edge”.
(6) “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility” William Wordsworth (major English Romantic Poet 1770-1850)
