OPEN OUR HEARTS AND MOVE US TO TEARS
Bing Wang performed the score from Schindler’s List with such precision, yet she rendered the melody with such deep emotion that, being in close proximity to the stage, I believed that behind her closed eyelids she wept.
Schindler’s List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, who saved more than a thousand Jews from the Nazi extermination machine. For me, as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, it is impossible to separate the haunting violin melody from the images and memories it represents. The music seems to carry within it the voices of those who perished, the anguish of those who survived, and the miracle of those who were saved. There are no words, yet somehow the violin tells the entire story.
Perhaps that was why Bing Wang’s performance affected me so profoundly. There seemed to be no other way to release so much emotion from her violin.
The artist’s performance was not inhibited by the rain or the drizzle which, at times, drenched us. I began to think of those drops from the heavens as tears of sadness from Hashem, because surely He too must have been listening.
In a few days it will be Rosh Hashanah, and I had purchased tickets for an evening at the Hollywood Bowl.
As I wrote in my last piece, one is allowed to dream of faraway places, and music has always been part of Jewish history in every sense of the word. So I thought that an evening in the open air, surrounded by loving family members, would create the perfect setting for me to clear my mind and soul and prepare myself to enter our sanctuary, our Beth HaMikdash Katan, and daven with all my heart.
My long raincoat was wrapped tightly around me, I hugged myself as I listened to the sounds flowing from Bing Wang’s violin.
The wetness did not bother me.
At one point I tilted my head and gazed at the sky. It had transformed into deep, muted shades of blue, while in a few places golden rays tried to create a path through the clouds.
For a moment, I imagined they were carrying a message from above, from my dear father and mother:
“All is good. All will be good. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy…”
And that is exactly what I did.
The magnificent music rolled over me like giant waves, and I allowed myself to be swept away. The violin, the rain, the darkening sky and those few golden rays somehow became part of my preparation for the important days ahead.
Perhaps that is what music can do.
It can reach places within us that words cannot reach. It can open our hearts and move us to tears. And sometimes, just before Rosh Hashanah, those tears are exactly what we need.
I left the Hollywood Bowl wet from the rain, but with my heart a little lighter, ready to enter the New Year with gratitude, hope, and a prayer that the golden rays will find their way through the clouds for all of us.