So, we almost never have time on the road to just simply hang out. I think one of the coolest things about my career is that I get to meet all kinds of truly brilliant and fascinating people. The total bummer is that I rarely have any time to spend before we move on to the next city. Well, today was beautiful exception… really beautiful! We played in Cape Cod last night – had a great show with a super warm community we had never visited before. Total blast! Anyway, after the show, I was rapping with some of the congregants and I told them I had never been to Cape Cod before. They started telling me about the seal and whale watching opportunities and all the scenic views … and I realized that I actually had a few hours the following morning before heading to Beverly, MA for our next engagement. As I was getting directions to some of the cool scenic areas, the Rabbi introduced me to a gentleman who owns a boat yard nearby who was sweet enough to invite me and the crew to go for a ride out to the see the seals in the bay. So, that’s what we did!

This morning, after a great night of sleep, we got up and drove to boatyard, suited up in big yellow and orange rain suits, and jumped on the boat with Allan and Alan’s wife and their 2 dogs. It was a sort of wonderfully refreshing grey and drizzly morning, not too cold – just what I’d expect a spring day on the water in Cape Cod to look and feel like. As we passed all kinds of boats docked or moving in the water, Alan would tell us what kind of fish this or that boat hauled in. He explained the rules and regulations of fishing, how lobsters are caught, his journey from being the son of a boat yard owner, to becoming an engineer, to working on a scooner in Maine, to owning his own boat yard for the last 14 years. Alan’s wife told us about the seasons in Cape Cod, the visitors, the owners of the gigantic homes along the shoreline, the tourists, and more. We talked about how complicated religion can be for an 11 year-old (they have a daughter) – the physical pain of getting up early for Sunday school, the conflict between the Big Bang and the kinds of miracle stories we hear in our literature and how unbelievable it can be at times, the importance of community, how intangible believing in God can be, and how religion offers amazing opportunities to feel part of a bigger global picture. All this talk surrounded by the misty water and, eventually, more than a hundred seals lounging on a sandbar right in front of us and seal heads popping up all around us in the water checking US out.

As we’re making our drive up to Beverly, MA, I’m just feeling very appreciative and blessed to have had this unique experience this morning. I’m a huge fan of the water. When I’m on the water, I can only think about where I am. It’s almost as if everything totally slips away, time stops, and I’m just exactly in the moment – usually with dear friends. Hanging out with new and old friends, and learning about lives, skills, professions, and perspectives of others, laughing a bunch – today was a hole in one!

I’m always talking about about how opportunities for participation are so critical for connection to Jewish life. And, of course, I’m a bit biased and feel that Jewish music provides some of the most amazing opportunities for relevance, education, entertainment, and more. Ten years ago, I didn’t know a Jewish song and had virtually no connection to Jewish life. I had a strong Jewish identity, but no affiliation whatsoever with anything Jewish. Through a bizarre twist of fate (it’s a long story), I ended up becoming a Jewish songleader at a conservative Jewish day camp (Ramot Amoona, B’nai Amoona, St. Louis, MO) and found my Jewish voice and meaning. Through music, I found Judaism to be something that is relevant and meaningful in my life - a way to participate in Jewish life as a learner, a teacher, an entertainer, and more. Jewish music was and is my door of entry, my point of connection, to being and doing Jewish.

When I first started playing Jewish music, I used to teach guitar and I had a student named Zach. Both he and his sister, Jamie, took lessons from me. Each week, his mom, Debbie, would come over to my house with the kids and they would have their lessons, one after the other. Zach was just a little kid at the time, so his guitar seemed huge in his hands, but Zach worked really hard from week to week and got better and better. After a relatively short time, I was able to invite Zach and Jamie to join me and the band on stage as ‘special guests’ during our local concerts and Shabbat services. Zach is a really sweet and humble kid and isn’t overly external about his emotions, but I could tell that these experiences were super exciting and moving for Zach.

So, let’s skip forward about 7 years now. Zach has played dozens and dozens of concerts and services with me and the band over the years. Zach has become a songleader at the camp where I learned to love Jewish music as a songleader myself. Zach also plays the drums now and has his own very successful DJ service. Jewish music, and especially leading, teaching and sharing Jewish music, has become a big part of his Jewish identity. Zach has also become super involved in USY and often leads Jewish song-sessions during USY events.

The other night, after our Shabbat Alive service at United Hebrew, Zach lead the entire song-session after the service in the social hall. I would say I was extremely proud, but that would only be a part of what I felt. I am really moved at the skilled leader Zach has become… and he’s still one of the sweetest, most humble characters I know. This was the kid who used to come over every week for guitar lessons with the giant guitar. This is what Jewish music is all about and Zach took the opportunity and ran with it – ran hard with it! Zach’s bringing a lot of joy to the Jewish world and, no doubt, inspiring all kinds of young kids to see Judaism as something that’s fun, meaningful, and relevant. And some of those kids want to be just like Zach – a new crop of Jewish songleaders coming right up.

Zach called yesterday to let us know that he is the new president of his synagogue USY chapter. You ROCK Zach!

It’s a little blurry looking back, but there are certain things I can still see, hear, or even smell – I was just a little kid. I remember those little blue JNF boxes, the Israeli flags, the bus ride to Jewish Community Center camp, the light of the Shabbat candles, my mother’s Haddasah Tshirt she wore so proudly, me singing the 4 questions, the poppyseed hamentashen, the family parties with 30 or more super loud family members and tons of kids bizerkly running everywhere. These are slices of my early Jewish life I remember through the cloudiness that builds up over the years. But something I remember well was my mother telling me about her father, my grandfather, Moses Shartsis.

Moses died years before I was born, so I never met him. Moses had come from somewhere in Europe and it’s not totally clear what his level of religious observation was, but he felt some sort of deep connection with the idea that Jews should have a homeland – a safe place, a haven from the rampid violence and scape-goating leveled upon Jews no matter where they lived throughout the world. Anti-semitism wasn’t a foreign concept to my grandfather – he had certainly experienced it firsthand. Moses was in the very last years of his life when Israel became a state in 1948 and was very poor so he could have never dreamed of going to visit Israel, but he did dream that his daughter, my mother, would visit Israel. He and his family were so poor that all 6 of them lived in one room in St. Louis and he knew he would never make the journey to Israel himself.

My mother was in the very beginning years of her life in 1948, just 9 years old, but had heard her father speak quite often of his dream for her. My grandmother died when my mom was only 5 and her father was much older (70 years old when she was born), so she and her siblings were raised at the local Jewish children’s home where they were very religiously and culturally observant. The kids at the children home, essentially orphans, were often reminded of how privileged they were to have a home, to have food, to have clothing, to have the love of their children’s home family, and to live in such a glorious time when the Jewish people would have a homeland in Israel!

In my mother’s 12-year old diary, she wrote about her dream of visiting Israel some day – visiting Israel for her father, Moses. She also wrote about having a son someday who she would name Ricky and that he would have his Bar Mitvah in Israel. And 10 years later, she met my father, and with $300 between the two of them, they were married. They were never well off, but they saved up most of their money and eventually went to Israel for the first time in 1967, just days after the miraculous victory won by Israel. My mother said that on that trip, she could feel her father with her. She said it was if he was literally walking next to her when she walked into the Kotel for the first time.

After that trip, my parents began to save for my Bar Mitzvah in Israel – keep in mind, I wasn’t even born yet. In 1971, my parents returned to Israel with their fire orange, red-headed, 1-year old – me. And in 1983, we returned to Israel as a family for my Bar Mitvah which took place at the Wall – just as my mother had dreamed so many years before my birth. As a kid, fulfilling the milestone of my Bar Mitvah at the Wall in Israel, it was virtually impossible for me to fully internalize my personal thread in the fabric of my mother’s life, the history of my family, and the history of the Jewish people. That being said, I was blown away by the experience. As we stood together in the Kotel during my Bar Mitzvah, I remember my mother whispering in my ear, “Your grandfather is with us right now – he’s here!” (you can see this interaction in my Bar Mitvah video).

My mother died in 1994 and now I have 2 young boys and, this last summer, I returned to Israel with my wife, Elisa. And as the 2 of us walked through the Kotel and stood in front of the Wall, I could feel my mother and grandfather with me and I whispered to Elisa, “Would it be ok with you if our boys could have their Bar Mitvah’s here at the Wall?” So, we’ve started saving for the trips!

Today, as we celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday, I realize that most of my friends and I have never known life without an Israel. Most of us have never experience blatant anti-semitism and, to the contrary, most of us have been raised in very safe, open, celebratory, and proud Jewish environments including synagogues, day schools, Jewish Community Centers, youth groups, and Jewish camps. As a generation, we have to reach outside of our own personal experience to grasp the profound importance of the existence of Israel. The other day, I was perusing a really cool blog site by a woman named Esther Kustanowitz called ‘myurbankvetch2005’ On the site, she had posted a video (check it out: http://estherkustanowitz.typepad.com/myurbankvetch2005/) taken just a few days ago during Yom Hazikaron remembering men and woman who have fallen in battle for Israel. In the video, you see what appears to be a typical day in Israel, with cars buzzing through the streets, people walking and talking in all different directions, horns honking, etc. Then, you hear a siren, and everything stops almost instantly. The traffic, the horns, the people, the conversations - all stop on a dime. And for a minute or so, Israel is in a national freeze frame. And then the sirens stop and all motion resumes. I had heard about this phenomenon, but had never witnessed it until seeing this video the other day. What a trip! For these people, Yom Hazikaron and today, Yom Haatzmaut, have a very, very personal and real connection. Most of these people have friends or family members who have literally died for Israel.

For me, though, I have something different. I have Jewish rock music, Jewish Community Centers, the Jewish holidays, the light of our family Shabbat candles and the unbridled exhilaration of my oldest son, Kobi, coming home from Jewish day school every single day singing a new Jewish song or proudly reciting his new Hebrew vocabulary words or numbers. And this is where I find my connection to Judaism. This is where I find my connection to Israel which feels like a hub that ties all of these experiences together and creates both a historic and futuristic anchor of importance, intention, and meaning.

And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t see or experience most or any of this if it wasn’t for my mother and her connection to Judaism and Israel. And pretty regularly, I still hear my mother whisper to me that she’s always with me and is very much looking forward to our next trip to Israel together.