Our interview with Punk Torah's Patrick A is featured at BustedHalo.com. Patrick A, founder of Punk Torah, is fascinating because he is totally rebellious about loving G-d, meaning he does, a lot, and isn't afraid to talk about it or scream his head off on stage shouting Torah. That kind of spirituality gets us going here at The Jew Spot. Why are Jews so scared to talk about the All Mighty? We asked Patrick at Busted Halo.
BH: Do you feel that the Jewish population has a harder time expressing themselves through G-d compared to other religions?
PA: Absolutely. Rabbi Cheryl Kushner wrote something really good about that. She said the difference between Jews and Christians is that Christians are a club. A club gets together because you have a shared idea. Jews are a family. Families seldom have the same ideas on everything. That goes back again to cultural Judaism and Religious Judaism. My argument is that there is a lot of culture in religious Judaism, and a lot of religion in cultural Judaism. So let’s just call it Judaism. My bias, I want to help create a spiritual voice for the “New Jew.”
He goes on to say... My choice of using punk is because I come from a punk rock background. It’s what I like to do for fun. Because I know holiness and godliness exist in everything, there is a holy and godly place for punk rock. Matthue Roth talked about how Abraham and Sarah were the first punk rock couple. For me, I couldn’t not have music in my life. That would never ever work for me. And luckily I belong to a tradition that not only says that that’s OK, but has a history doing that.
BH: Wait, Abraham and Sarah the first punk rock couple? How is that?
PA: From a midrash [interpretation] standpoint, you have people who are running from town to town. They’re smashing idols. You’ve got this crazy three-way thing going on with Hadar… Then Sarah gets all jealous. You have this sort of misfit couple, very Jerry Springer, can’t get it together. And it’s not denigrating to say that.
By calling it out, I think we liberate the scripture. It’s more real. How many times have people been in relationships where they thought, OK I need to let this person fly away and they’ll come back to me. And then that person flies away into someone else’s arms and they get pissed. That’s such a human thing. If we can, move the characters in the Torah outside their caricature and bring them into now. Let’s just call it what it is and find the holiness in that as opposed to trying to construct the holiness based on a preconceived notion of what it is.
Whoa! Great interview with Patrick. Read the entire piece here at BustedHalo.com. Tell us what you think.
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2 comments
A SUPPORTED BY THE DEVELOPER TOOLS? It was interesting. You seem very knowledgeable in ypour field.
Posted on December 26, 2009 9:21 PM
Whoa, that's maybe going a little overboard. Abraham was clearly a rebel in his day, and he and his wife were both blessed with prophetic insight. However, the lessons for us get lost when you try to ascribe something so fully modern to people of such cosmic greatness. They are the sort of people that are really not possible to understand today (no more prophecy these days, etc.). Whether or not you follow more traditional Jewish rules (such as prohibitions like kol isha), it is probably worthwhile to have more of an appreciation for these issues. The idea of kol isha (prohibition against hearing a woman's voice singing) is basically that the voice itself is nakedness and brings intimacy on a level that is not appropriate if you are not related. There are various opinions if this means only live music or recorded, etc. etc. The prophets and great leaders of our people have so much to teach nowadays, but talking about them as punk rockers obscures so much of their greatness and what they were about. Having that extra sensitivity about these kinds of issues makes them so much more meaningful.
Posted on December 29, 2009 3:46 AM