Tzav
Shabbat HaGadol
Leviticus 6:1-8:36
Malachi 3:4-3:24
“Roots, man — we’re talking about Jewish roots, you want to know more? Check on Elijah the prophet. … yeah — these are my roots, I suppose. Am I looking for them? … I ain’t looking for them in synagogues … I can tell you that much.” — Bob Dylan, 1983
So is the Messiah a person or a process of redemption?
In my forthcoming book on Bob Dylan’s gnostic theology, “God Knows Everything Is Broken,” I argue that the Hibbing bard fell prey to the allure of messianic personhood one night in a Tucson hotel room, as he described his own experience: “I felt my whole body tremble. The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up.”
Months later, Dylan again found himself alone in empty arena sound-checks. Through these solitary communions, he worked up a new song, “Slow Train,” which served, amid larger questions with ineffable answers, as his own journey through a messianic process.
Meanwhile, many of his Jewish listeners turned a deaf ear to his next three of albums.
It is necessary hear how Dylan’s “conversion songs” are inextricably linked to his ongoing post-conversion songs.
Following a few short years of “conversion,” Dylan, in 1983, released “Infidels,” a virulent self-critique, embarking on “a very personal battle to construct a world view that retains [his] faith in both God and humanity.” Around this time, Dylan even recorded an album of Hasidic songs (the bootlegged out-takes are called “From Shot to Saved”).
It is through the outreach of Rabbi Manis Friedman that Dylan found his direction home, and Chabad legend has it that the Hibbing bard prayed in a hoodie at the Crown Heights headquarters. During Dylan’s first appearance before the late Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson at his farbrengen, a traditional Hasidic gathering, the latter did not acknowledge the former, given his apostate status; only after Dylan immersed in a mikvah to return to his Jewish self would the rebbe smile at him at the next farbrengen.
While this “re-conversion” story is kept under wraps, Dylan’s public return to roots was still misunderstood as a returning of a secularist, or nonobservant Jew. Perhaps their singing spokesperson accepted the darkening spiritual awareness that “everything is broken.”
Yet the return to his Jewish roots, for Dylan, was just that — radical, not as a zealot, which “Infidels” rejects, but rather a return to the radical nature of Jewish roots, devoid of Orthodox ideology.
In his perennial reinventions, Dylan’s pendulum swings — not merely from one orthodoxy to another — but from orthodoxy to heterodoxy. Already wobbling into heterodoxy in 1985, Dylan remarks: “Whether you believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah is irrelevant, but whether you’re aware of the messianic complex, that’s … important … People who believe in the coming of the Messiah live their lives right now, as if He was here …”
Unlike the medieval Jewish mystic, Abraham Abulafia whose aborted messianic meeting to convert Pope Nicholas III in 1279, Dylan’s modern messianic mission with Pope John Paul II in 1997 was met with equally dubious reception as the Vatican called him “a false prophet.”
Did Dylan believe his messianic search had evolved from personhood to process, to then dissolve the differences between Judaism, Christianity and Islam?
Like every SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) seeker so allergic to setting foot in a synagogue, Dylan eventually returns home to the root of his soul.
Being “aware of the messianic complex” demarcates the theology of Dylan’s songbook and enables its rapid shift, from the apocalyptic songs to those affirming a personal sense of gratitude for his redemption. This struggle to clarify the source of messianism emerges in many lyrics, for example, in “Pressing on to a Higher Calling” (from the 1980 album “Saved”), which points to the shift from personhood to process. Such a journey, especially when it is frustratingly circuitous, is only possible by struggling with messianism as a process.
So for Pesach, don’t leave home! Rather stay attuned during the seder. Open that door at home for Elijah and see there is really an internalizing shift taking place, from messianic personhood to process. It is an opening to that “kind of sign [each and every one of us] need[s] when it all come[s] from within”! It is precisely that song of awareness of the messianic complex that calls every one of us to sing this Shabbat HaGadol, the great Shabbat that precedes Pesach.
Sorry Rabbi. The evidence just isn’t there. Dylan is a “follower of Jesus” as the Barna group describes an emerging phenomena of Christians dedicated to Jesus, but de-churched from religious organization. He fits, as well as Dylan fits any category, which is to say marginally, into the FoJ mindset on most points. The FoJ are; orthodox, spiritual, and non-confrontational about their beliefs. Unlike Dylan’s Gospel years, he doesn’t proselytize from the stage anymore, but his set list continues to feature songs dripping with Christian imagery.
Not to say that Dylan’s extensive reading into Jewish mysticism doesn’t still show up in his songs as well. See his new collection, Triplicate, and his comments on the number of songs included.
Though most serious Dylan scholars agree on his continuing Christian faith, however eccentric its expression, the clearest reason to believe he is still following Jesus is this. He has never renounced his faith in song or print.
Please, be content with Leonard Cohen, who was also a great artist, and proudly, profoundly Jewish.
Of course, as with all things Dylan, feel free and encouraged to disagree. It’s half the fun of being a fan.
Meanwhile, many of his Jewish listeners turned a deaf ear to his next three of albums.
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Shalom & Erev tov, ‘dylanfandan’…you do not know what you’re talking about. Reb Aubrey Glazer reveals the fact — known to many of us — that with the guidance of Rav Manis Friedman, Shabtai Zisel / ‘Bob Dylan’ re/turned literally to being a Yehu’di…he followed the praxis of renouncing his natz’ri apostasy, immersed himself in a mikveh, and studied with The Rebbe z”l. I have a photograph of The Rebbe z”l with Shabtai / ‘Bob’ on his second visit in 1992, after Shabtai / ‘Bob’ had become a ba’al teshuvah. It is most unfortunate that those who feverishly want Shabtai / ‘Bob’ to be an apostate natz’ri, just cannot accept the FACT he is a chassidish Yehu’di. In 2016, e.g., on the giant screens behind him, he had a brief shot of the The Rebbe z”l walking through the hallways of 770 Eastern Parkway. The Clinton Heylins gossipographers (Heylin — a functional Hebrew illiterate — describes CHaBaD as a ‘cult’, and his next book is permeated with Yehu’di baiting) are tryjing to ambulate with their shoe-laces tied together. I discuss all of the apostasy in Chapter 2 of my monograph-in-progress, Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v’Rachel Riva: davening in the musematic dark.
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STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח”ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu’di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
Greetings Mr Pickering. Dear Fellow Dylan Fan, thanks for responding. I can’t make head nor tail of your argument, and perhaps that was your point. My point is Dylan continues to make reference to himself as a believing Christian in interviews and continues to play Christian music at his concerts. If you balance that indisputable fact against one photograph and unverified assertions by self interested parties I think reasonable people come to an alternate conclusion.
Peace and blessings.
Shalom & Boker tov…you are perpetrating a phantasy. Shabtai Zisel is NOT a natz’ri, and he does NOT identify himself as a ‘believing’ apostate, and there is no ‘christian music’ he performs. I have several photographs of Shabtai Zisel worshipping as a Yehu’di. Moreover, your ‘christological imagery’ is without meaning. By 1983, he had been well along the derekh / path of teshuvah / repentance. As a post-Auschwitz Yehu’di, he (like all of us in the nonlinearity which colours our be-ing) is immersed in the complexity of the ‘messianic’ question. It is no accident that he is quite familiar with the CHaBaD research of R. Jacob Immanuel Schochet, which he encountered in his studies with the Rebbe z”l. R. Schochet’s Mashiach: the principle of mashiach and the messianic era in Jewish law & tradition (S.I.E.) gave Shabtai / ‘Bob’ the tools to articulate his thoughts about the ‘messianic complex’. For you to dismiss as ‘unverified assertions by self interested parties’ those who have witnessed Shabtai / Bob’s active participation in CHaBaD is ludicrous.
A minor historical correction for you. ‘Yeshu benMiriam’ was the deliberate, necessary fabrication of a late 2 / early 3 century CE Graeco-Roman-Egyptian, revelatory thanatos cult. There was no parthenogenesis, Bethlehem was not an inhabited village, there were no Yosef/Miriam, no ‘disciples’, no Gol’gotha / Kranion, no anastasis. ‘Paul’ was an invention of followers of Marcion. There were no natz’rim in 1 century CE Yisra’el because natz’rut did not exist. And the koine Greek forgeries, your proselytising ‘gospels’, are NOT reflective of any bris / covenant with haKodesh Barukh hu. You do NOT have a ‘new covenant’. The only thing you have is the fact that natz’rut laid the groundwork, beginning with Constantine, of exterminations up to including the 1933-1945 Sho’ah, when our birth registrations became warrants for genocide…to hasten the ‘rapture’ you ‘born-again’ mythicists yearn for.
You still do not know what you are talking about.
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STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח”ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu’di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
Mr Pickering.That is certainly a heated and i hope heartfelt response. Unfortunately, it doesn’t address the facts at hand. His last album of original work, Tempest, is rife with unmistakable Christian imagery. Narrow Way, Pay In Blood, and Scarlet Town being most accessible. The interviews are public record, I expect you to have the intellectual integrity to check them out for yourself. After his Christmas Album, Christmas In the Heart, an interviewer commented, you sing them like a true believer, to which Dylan replied, well I am a true believer. Every interview in the past few years has a similar exchange.
As to your assertion, as I understand it, that Jesus was a mythological figure, that is utter nonsense of the sort issuing from the Alt-right. That particular lie issued from Soviet Russia, or so I’ve read. The historical evidence is so overwhelming for his birth, that to deny it puts you in the category of climate change deniers, not to mention Holocaust deniers
You assume I’m an evangelical without basis, I’m afraid. I’m merely defending the facts. It seems particularly important in this moment in time to speak plainly and truthfully in every circumstance.
I doubt I will make a commitment to learn Hebrew, since I don’t feel the compulsion. I do however have a special place in my heart for Psalm 131. I may learn enough Hebrew to commit that treasured wisdom to memory. Should be a cinch for you.
Peace and blessings.
Shalom & Boker tov…you are evading the realities. I know exactly what he means when, as a Yehu’di, he states he is a ‘believer’. Read his 1985 fascinating exchange with Scott Cohen, when he uses Rav Schochet’s paradigms to discuss the ‘messianic complex’. Since you are illiterate in the scholarship on the mythical ‘Yeshu benMiriam’, you dare compare me, a Yehu’di (I have since 1970 published extensively on Shabtai Zisel / ‘Bob Dylan’) to those who deny the Sho’ah, climate change, etc. I remind you again: the scholarship proving your god-man is mythological is irrefutable. ‘Yeshu benMiriam’ has no support from ‘historical evidence’, which you have not read. The work of Frank Zindler, Earl Doherty, Rene Salm, among others, you have not read.
As a footnote: TEMPEST is a decidedly chassidish collection of insights, not one containing any of your ‘christian imagery’.
My own feeling is that discussion of facts relating to Shabtai Zisel / ‘Bob Dylan’ stops prudently with you before the parallels draw close enough to yield likely, and probable, conclusions. I have been studying his work since 1962. You still do not know what you are talking about.
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STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח”ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu’di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
Let me help you rephrase an insult you seem to find irresistible. I do know what I’m talking about, but it’s true I do not know what you are talking about. Your ego seems to require a bow I’m not willing to offer. You are no doubt responding not to me alone, or even principally, but to your readers, whatever their number, real or imagined.
I dared compare historical Jesus deniers to climate change deniers because statistically they–you–occupy the same percentile. 1%. So, irrefutable seems irrefutably on my side of the argument.
Mr Pickering, I sense we are at an impasse. I am perfectly willing to let readers view our exchange and decide for themselves.
Sincere peace and blessing.
Shalom & Boker tov…no, I do not offer an ‘insult’, but the reality you do not know what you are talking about. We are discussing 1-3 centuries CE textualities, not the very real contemporaneous fact we are destroying our environments.
‘Yeshu benMiriam’ never existed, and there is no codex from the 1 century CE, no papyrus, no carving, no Hebrew/Greek/Roman documents. You are alluding to later natz’ri texts. The much earlier Judaean Desert scrolls I have read (and actually seen), but they are not 1 century CE, and do not mention a mythical figure that did not appear until the late 2 / early 3 century CE koine Greek forgeries. The Nag Hammadi Coptic texts are not contemporaneous, but later, so these cannot be introduced into this discussion. Philo, who was living in the area, does not mention your mythical god-man, and neither does Josephus, the Roman collaborator (the citations attributed to him were later manuscript forged interpolations).
I have examined the non-existent ‘evidence’ you fondly refer to, and I have studied (in both Hebrew and English) the existing scholarship which refute your phantasies. From the 1 century CE to much later, there is what Earl Doherty has termed the ‘great silence’. And so. I am not insulting you when I state for the record: you do NOT know what you are talking about, e.g. Nazareth was not inhabited in the period in question.
The state-of-mind YOU are exhibiting is cognitive dissonance. You are self-deceived when it comes to evidence. A classic example is the FACT that, in the 1 century CE, there was NO fervent messianic expectations. Since you admittedly will not even learn Hebrew/Aramaic to seek the answers, I shall just inform you the rabbinic literature from the Bet haMikdash haSheni (the Second Temple period) does not show messianic movements, and the idea of a personal mashiach was in large measure irrelevant.
Thus, you refuse to study the actual scholarship (Earl Doherty has done the definitive exegesis of the actual texts and chronologies). Instead, you avail yourself of the predictable ‘christian’ habit of offering screeds and evasions rather than study the materials.
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STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח”ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu’di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
Fascinating exchange going on here but, really, who cares if Bob Dylan is a practicing Jew or a practicing Christian? What difference does it make one way or the other?
Shalom & Boker tov…to be a natz’ri after Auschwitz is, to paraphrase Yitz Greenberg, a betrayal of the burning children…עבודה זרה…to be a natz’ri after Auschwitz is an embrace of daemonic evil…
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STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח”ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu’di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT
Being taken with the “figure of Jesus” doesn’t mean he believes Jesus was divine rather than “only” an extraordinary human being. His friend Leonard Cohen also was also impressed with the life of Jesus but remained a Jew. He was quick to point out that he didn’t worship Jesus, although he was moved by his human example. Perhaps will have to wait until Dylan’s inevitable passing when we will learn if Bob is buried with full Jewish rites as Leonard was.
I look forward to reading what those who say Dylan’s “Christianity” is a settled matter have to well-known admiration of Chabad. Dylan has frequently been sighted at Chabad events and religious observances over the past 30-some years, including a recent Yom Kippur service where he was called to the Torah, something that would never be sanctioned by a Chabad rabbi if Chabad still considered him an apostate. Dylan hasn’t worshiped with the Vineyard Fellowship in decades. Nor has he ever been known to attend a so-called messianic church.
Perhaps he expressed his true point of view when he told Spin Magazine in 1985 that “Whether you believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah is irrelevant, but whether you’re aware of the messianic complex, that’s … important … People who believe in the coming of the Messiah live their lives right now, as if he was here …”
What believing Christian would ever say that “Whether you believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah is irrelevant”? His ambiguity remains. Perhaps we will learn more when his lifelong friend, Louis Kemp’s forthcoming book (written with a little help from Kinky Friedman), The Boys from the North Country: my life with Robert Zimmerman & Bob Dylan, is published. Kemp remains one of Dylan’s closest and most trusted friends and has indicated Bob is fine with the book. Kemp is an Orthodox Jew and davens with Chabad, as does his son-in-law, singer-songwriter Peter Himmelman.
I am leaving out quite a bit since I don’t have time to write more tonight. Let me end here: There is a very detailed record of Dylan’s involvement with Kemp and the Chabad of Pacific Palisades community. When the song & dance man shuffles off the mortal coil, I am guessing that only then will all our questions will be answered.
It is all making much of little. Dylan, like many artists, shows signs of emotional instability. Having a relative or acquaintance who has made a tour of converting from one religion to another to another, as Dylan has, is far from rare. No one takes them too seriously. When a famous person does the same, there is always some celebrity-worshipper or opportunist who will rattle on pompously about ‘theology’. And make a buck selling a book in the process.