photo by Chris Briscoe

before i
gave birth to
you i sacrificed
every first born in
the land of egypt surely
you remember i said pharaoh let
my first born go and
worship me in the wilderness
but he refused now
here we are in the wilderness now
i have you to myself yes
you are my
first born and
you are mine
all mine

(Numbers 3:13, Exodus 4:22-23)

(Leviticus 25:23)

and aaron replied to god
no i don’t turn
away the blind or the
scarred the fractured the
shattered the severed the
beaten or vanquished all
will be welcome to eat of
the sacred meal for there is
nothing so whole as a broken
heart none more open than the
freshly wounded
i wonder if
you
could
even
pass
that
test

(Leviticus 21:16-23)

Like many people across the country and around the world, I’m mourning the untimely loss of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (aka MCA).

While Yauch may have attained popularity as one third of a group of New York Jewish rappers who got their start helping at least one generation of suburban white boys “fight for their right to party,” his personal spiritual evolution into Tibetan Buddhism was one major reason the Beasties’ music ended up going in such amazing and ever-surprising directions for over a decade.

RIP MCA. In remembrance, here’s an excerpt from MCA’s 1994 interview with the Buddhist Journal, Tricycle:

Yauch: The bottom line of all the problems on this planet and that all human beings are working on is this basic misconception of not-enoughness, feeling like we’re not enough. This is some strain of that, of feeling that if the dharma is presented in this way, or if these other people become interested in this or get excited about it, it’s going to take something away from me. It’s this basic misconception, this feeling of not-enoughness.

Tricycle: Do you see any difference for your own generation?

Yauch: One of the monks said something that’s relevant here. He noticed this huge separation in America between the kids and the adults that doesn’t exist where he comes from, and that there’s a real polarization between adults and youth. Where they come from, when there’s a celebration—or a dance, or a party, or music—the little kids and the grandpas are all dancing and singing together. That’s something this country could definitely grasp hold of. Our polarization of that is more extreme than it needs to be.

Tricycle: Are you hopeful about your generation?

Yauch: I’m pretty hopeful about the evolution of humanity in general. I think that all of us here on the planet at this point have come into these lifetimes and into these bodies because it’s a crucial time in the evolution of the planet and humanity. It’s a transitional phase, and I think that everyone has come in at this time to be a part of that, to be part of the Big Show.

PS: To the uninitiated: Adam is the one with the backwards cap…

The Deopokhari festival in Nepal is held to appease what locals believe is a demon that resides in a pond. Every year, goats and other animals are sacrificed to the pond demon so that no human lives will be lost to drowning. (Photo: Niranjan Shrestha / AP)

azazel danced down the edge of
the rocky slope when the
animal finally appeared in
the distance looking up he saw empty confessions
dissolving like beads of water on a
hot desert floor marveling at the desperate
neverending thirst for expiation how wonderful to
let a poor beast die for your sins how delectably
deliciously marvelous he reached the
bottom of the dry riverbed skipping gleefully in
anticipation he ran to greet the offering so
ravenous he didn’t bother to glance
behind at the dessicated goat
carcasses lying in heaps on the
floor of the
valley

(Leviticus 16:6-10)

(Leviticus 13:1-23)

In honor of Yom Hashoah, I offer this wonderful short documentary on the life of Raphael Lemkin, one of the greatest moral heroes of the 20th century.

I can think of no greater tribute to the memory of the six million – and all victims of genocide – than the legacy of this remarkable man.

Kirk McKoy/Los Angeles Times

As someone who cherishes Jewish mystical tradition, I confess that I’ve long been dismayed by the shallow pop culture hucksterism of the the Berg family’s Kabbalah Centre (made famous in recent years for attracting Hollywood celebrities such as Madonna, Brittany Spears, and Ashton Kutcher among their devotees.) Whenever asked by those interested in learning more about Kabbalah, I’ve made a point of steering them away from the likes of the Kabbalah Centre in favor of contemporary scholars such as my own teacher Rabbi Art Green, author of “Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow” and “Seek My Face, Speak My Name: A Jewish Mystical Theology.”

For years I’ve been interested in what someone like Art would say about a phenomenon such as the Kabbalah Centre.  Now I’ve just discovered that he did precisely that in a HuffPo piece last October:

What (Kabbalah Centre founder Rabbi Philip) Berg figured out is that superstition and the insecurities that attract people to it did not disappear with modernity. They exist in Hollywood just as much as in poor neighborhoods of Jerusalem. You just need to know how to market them. At this he became a genius. He took his outrageous promises and bundled them together with the sort of self-help advice one can readily find in many books sold in airport bookstores. To these he joined some light bits of true Kabbalistic learning. He wrapped them all up in bundles of red string, making an old Eastern European talisman, used mostly for keeping witches away from babies’ cribs, a new identifying symbol for his “Kabbalists,” most of whom had no real idea of what the Jewish mystical tradition was all about…

The sad part of this story is that it represents a thorough mixing of goodness and cynicism. Many people testify that their lives were set straight by loyalty to the Kabbalah Centre, that they were freed from addictions, brought back from depression, or even just redeemed from the triviality of Hollywood and its values. Who could not thank the Bergs for the positive effect they have had on the lives of so many? But in the end, hucksterism seems to have won out. The “evil urge” is a pretty slippery character, especially when big money becomes involved. The Kabbalah Centre’s founders and leaders, especially in creating a dynasty, have taken the reputation of an ancient and noble tradition and have sullied it for their own gain. Kabbalah deserves better.

Art’s piece followed upon a thorough investigative article in the LA Times on allegations of corruption and financial shenanigans at the KC. Click here to read more.

his son’s bodies still smoldering next to the altar
they came and said to aaron
this is what happens when you play with strange fire
this is what happens when you’re too cautious
this is what happens when you don’t read the instructions
this is what happens when you’re too scared to improvise
this is what happens when you look into the light
this is what happens when you walk on the dark side
this is what happens when you attempt to escape
this is what happens when you remain in the ghetto
this is what happens when you believe the kindness of strangers
this is what happens when you fear the other
this is what happens when you disobey orders
this is what happens when you go like sheep
to the slaughter

(Leviticus 10:1-3)

A poem for Pesach: “Imagine the Angels of Bread” by Martin Espada.  Read it at seder this year!

This is the year that squatters evict landlords,
gazing like admirals from the rail
of the roofdeck
or levitating hands in praise
of steam in the shower;
this is the year
that shawled refugees deport judges
who stare at the floor
and their swollen feet
as files are stamped
with their destination;
this is the year that police revolvers,
stove-hot, blister the fingers
of raging cops,
and nightsticks splinter
in their palms;
this is the year that darkskinned men
lynched a century ago
return to sip coffee quietly
with the apologizing descendants
of their executioners.

This is the year that those
who swim the border’s undertow
and shiver in boxcars
are greeted with trumpets and drums
at the first railroad crossing
on the other side;
this is the year that the hands
pulling tomatoes from the vine
uproot the deed to the earth that sprouts
the vine,
the hands canning tomatoes
are named in the will
that owns the bedlam of the cannery;
this is the year that the eyes stinging from the poison that purifies toilets
awaken at last to the sight
of a rooster-loud hillside,
pilgrimage of immigrant birth; this is the year that cockroaches
become extinct, that no doctor
finds a roach embedded
in the ear of an infant;
this is the year that the food stamps
of adolescent mothers
are auctioned like gold doubloons,
and no coin is given to buy machetes
for the next bouquet of severed heads
in coffee plantation country.

If the abolition of slave-manacles
began as a vision of hands without manacles,then this is the year;
if the shutdown of extermination camps
began as imagination of a land
without barbed wire or the crematorum,
then this is the year;
if every rebellion begins with the idea
that conquerors on horseback are not many-legged gods, that they too drown
if plunged in the river,
then this is the year.

So may every humiliated mouth,
teeth like desecrated headstones,
fill with the angels of bread.