The Devil Flees

Dear friends, 

An auspicious weekend is upon us.
It brings together four events with cosmic significance.

Be'ezrat Hashem we will see the first three hostages come home, and the fighting stop in Gaza. 

We will mark Martin Luther King Day, and recommit ourselves to his legacy of active, nonviolent struggle toward the just causes of equality and peace.

On the same day we will witness the inauguration of a new president; new in a narrow sense, and as old as time in others. 

And it will all take place on Shabbat Shmot, on which the story of our liberation from slavery begins, when at the start of the long and arduous journey toward freedom we are promised: "I will be with you."  

Our response to the confluence of these powerful forces of exaltation and dread is to meet in Harlem, where a building with a Star of David outside might be a synagogue or an African American church inside, to find liberation through Jazz music.

Some exceptional musicians will be guiding us, including Arnan Raz, who's been called “One of the leading lights on the international jazz scene" (UK Vibe). Arnan's latest album transforms old Israeli classics into pulsating Afro-Cuban post-bop numbers. 
And we are thrilled that Frank London will be making his New Shul return tonight with his trumpet, and a tune from his album Spirit Stronger than Blood.

"The devil," said MLK, "the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles, flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God.
The gift of language combined with the gift of song was only given to man to let him know that he should praise God with both word and music, namely, by proclaiming the Word of God through music."

Join us this evening at the National Jazz Museum of Harlem for a prayer for, and celebration of liberation through the magic of Jazz.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Misha