Not-Just For Dead Fans... How the Grateful Dead, Jewish Text and Worship Explain One Another and Raise Interesting Questions I believe that even those who actively dislike the Grateful Dead, or always happily ignored them, will find ideas worth considering in this comparison. “I guess they can't revoke your soul for trying.” – Robert Hunter --------------------------------PREFACE--------------------------------- Some years ago, my husband and I dragged our kids (then 11 and 13) to see the Dead. The kids asked why the folks in the parking lot were staying outside, even though the concert was scheduled to start: “How do they know when to go inside? Or, is the band waiting for them?” My husband, a non-Jew, noted that he was often similarly mystified by worship services: “How do they know when to it's time for....?” Not long after that I was part of a small havurah gathering waiting for a minyan, and we got to talking about when we might expect various regulars. This started me thinking about when, how and why Jews show up to services. I realized my husband's sentiment about worship services – like my kids befuddlement about Dead concerts – is shared by many Jews, even regular service-goers.... Over the years, I've been thinking about ways that Jewish text and worship and the Grateful Dead parallel one another. The result is this chart. This was originally presented as part of a dvar torah on parashat Shelach (Numbers 13:1-15:40) at Temple Micah in Washington, DC. Comments are encouraged. Please visit “A Song Every Day,” songeveryday.wordpress.com for more thoughts on Jewish text and prayer. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Spatz Dead Chart by Virginia A. Spatz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. How the Grateful Dead, Jewish Text and Worship Explain One Another and Raise Interesting Questions (Grateful) Dead Jewish Text/Tradition Additional Note(s)/Questions The (Grateful) Dead frequently took the Sanhedrin 2a: In some Jewish traditions, If a prayer leader – or the stage without greeting and began such “...But how do we know that a congregation individuals participate in person in the next seat – extensive set up that the uninitiated consists of not less than ten? It is written, prayer largely on their own, announces the service might assume that A) they were how long shall I bear with this evil 'edah. expecting to join in unison progression with care and watching roadies or that B) the concert Excluding Joshua and Caleb, we have ten....” prayer only for the barchu, someone regularly tells you would consist of endless sound checks. Bible verses appear without quotation marks, kaddish, repetition of the “what page we're on,” is that Sometimes the final chords of one song discussion seems always to be already in Amidah and a few other a sufficient clue as to what flowed directly into the next; other progress. Related points follow in places; spots. A visitor unfamiliar others are doing and/or how times, stretches of equipment fiddling apparently endless digressions separate other with this worship style might you might experience and/or improvisation separated songs. points in an argument or exposition. find it hard to participate. anything in the service? Long sound checks, tendency to drift Elements of style visible in San 2a above -- Worship style is not irrele- How do we – as individuals into individual or collective equipment weaving together of biblical sources, use of vant to how participants view and as a congregation – view adjustment, and habit (at least in older narrative Torah to explain a practicality, like what is happening in the the service? How much is days) of barely acknowledging the the minimum size of a “congregation” – are service: With few exceptions internally directed? focused audience were not irrelevant to the not irrelevant to understanding either the – Humanist prayer, e.g. – the on wider concerns? relating band's purpose (cf. acid test history). Talmud or the passage from Numbers. main siddur text is part of to others present? to “Israel”? The Dead interact with one another, The ancient rabbis and the texts are in a an ancient, on-going con- to/for God, however defined? relating to an audience without conversation with one another, relating to versation between Jews and Do these elements vary by addressing music TO it. future generations but not speaking TO us. God, not written TO users. person? gathering? moment? Are extended improvs and long drumming (Sanhedrin 2a continued) It's the “digression” here that We can sing prayers, chant, sessions time for a break or the point of a “...excluding Joshua and Caleb, we have ten, proves relevant to this week's dance; re-order or re-focus concert? Is melody just a launching point for and whence do we derive the additional portion and the definition of a the prayers; write new ones; the “real,” improvisational music? Or are three?...” minyan. Similarly, moments share intentions. Sit silently. instrumentals sometimes just pauses, The passage returns to what is ostensibly the after a chant and spaces be- What is essential – for each perhaps unduly long, in the melody? Which “main discussion,” of how it is known that 23 tween words are as crucial as of us and for us as a group – is “digression” and which is essential? men are needed for a small Sanhedrin. carefully crafted siddur text. for prayer to “work”? At ticket time, many best seats for a In Shelach-lecha, the People believe the spies' Sefat Emet (R. Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter, 1847-1905) identifies (Grateful) Dead concert were empty “evil reports” about the Land and refuse to “go the last-ditch aliyah attempt with yearning for a kind of un- while true Deadheads stayed outside, up.” This ends in death and disaster. Then, grounded, self-serving spirituality. In comparison, he urges: doing business and partying, until the after being told that they will now die in the Before doing anything, you have to offer up your soul as an concert began in earnest, and/or the desert for failure to take the Land immediately, emissary, gathering together all of your desires, in order to Dead did not really get going until the some make a last ditch effort to “go up” negate them, so that you can fulfill only the will of God. seats filled. So, one might ask: How did (14:40ff). This ends in disaster and death. How – 1998 trans. w/commentary by Arthur Green, Shai Gluskin anyone – band or fans – ever know did the People (and God) learn the right time? Can we manage this on a collective scale: In group prayer? when it “was time”? Did they? Were 40 years enough? Too much? In group decision-making? How? Spatz Dead Chart by Virginia A. Spatz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. (Grateful) Dead Jewish Text/Tradition Additional Note(s)/Questions Despite lack of introductions on stage and Arachin 15a 1] 2nd--3rd Century CE (third More fanatical Deadheads absence of album liners, many fans could “It was taught: R. Eleazar b. Perata1 said, generation Tanna); believe(d) that being a identify current and past band members, Whence do we know [the power of an evil 2] 3rd -4th C (Fifth generation worthy listener required knew each's musical history, and often tongue]? From the spies: for if it happens Amorim, post-Tannaim); knowing, e.g., which years referred to band members by first name as thus to those who bring up an evil report 3] of priestly family, Rabbah Donna Jean and Keith though speaking of near neighbors or against wood and stones, how much more bar Bachmani 3rd-4th C, Godchaux were with the cousins... will it happen to him who brings up an evil (third generation Amora); band, who wrote and sang ...and just when you thought you had the report against his neighbour!...Perhaps it is 4] Shimon ben Lakish, 3rd C which songs, etc. Similar band identified, the person in the next seat as explained by R. Hanina b. Papa2; for R. (early Amora) former claims are sometimes would begin muttering, “I miss Donna,” or Hanina b. Papa... Rather, said Rabbah3 in the gladiator, brother-in-law of suggested about Jewish “It's not the same without Pigpen.” name of Resh Lakish4...” R. Yohanan bar Nappaha learning or prayer. Some histories of the band long known Like San. above, all Talmud tractates begin on Taking as a given that we're, On the other hand, failing to as “the Grateful Dead” might begin page 2a. The first words of the first tractate – none of us, yet on page 1 can recognize that we're jumping with the first concert in 1965, but many “From what time may one recite the evening be freeing, an invitation to into an on-going enterprise, would say you have to start with the Shema?” – assume so much that it's clear the jump in and experience extending beyond our own Warlocks or Mother McCree's Uptown conversation is already in progress. “2a” is a Jewish learning or prayer – lives and times, can narrow Jug Champions or when band members printer's convention, yes, but also a reminder or even a (Grateful) Dead the experience into nonsense met in 1962 or first learned music... that no amount of learning brings us to page 1. recording – wherever we are. and noise. “Let the words be yours. I'm done with The reader, in his own fashion, is a scribe.... Teachings at left are from a re- To enjoy the Dead, it is not mine.” – John Barlow, “Cassidy,” 1972 the Revelation [is a] word coming from..