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embrace of Christianity was public, loud and
earned him his first Grammy ("You've Got to
I Serve Somebody"). Crystallizing an era's fear of
Jews for Jesus and missionaries and cults, he
became a Jewish apostate in a blitz of publicity
that Edith Stein (the Jewish-born recently can-
onized saint) could only envy.
But two years later, by his third "Christian"
album, he was praising Lenny Bruce as much
as Jesus.
It was at this point that he made a quiet return
/ - ro his Jewish roots. He was alternately spotted in
Crown Heights befriending Lubavitchers, or at
quiet Passover seders at a Chabad house in
Minnesota, or with the director of his old sum-
mer camp. He became friendly with Rabbi Manis
Friedman, the head cf the Chabad seminary in
Minneapolis, though the latter would remark
wistfully, years later, that Dylan "always liked the
questions better than the answers."
His 1983 album Infidels wasn't the rumored
album of Chasidic music, but did include two
songs with a clear Jewish agenda:
"Neighborhood Bully" defended Israel's attack,
on the Iraqui nuclear power plant and the inva-
sion of Lebanon; "Man of Peace" attacked
Christian missionaries as "Satan."
Dylan's Jewish enthusiasm seems to have waned
in the 16 years since its heyday, but remains real
though always subject to speculation.
Dylanologists ask what it means that his
rambling Rock and Roll Hall of Fame accep-
tance speech in 1989 turned out to be a quote
from a Siddur commentary, and that a line from
his 1997 Time Out of Mind album seems to
echo the Talmud.
There have been benefits for Chabad and for
- the Simon Weisenthal Center — and a com-
mand performance before the Pope (Dylan did-
n't kiss the ring.)
Then again, what does it mean when he
opens his set with his "In the Garden" about
Jesus or, as he has done on occasion during the
current tour, with 'Hallelujah," a bluegrass
gospel number featuring Jesus as well.
Rabbi Friedman recently told an interviewer
concerning Dylan, "You can say he was a Jew
and is a Jew but shuns the limelight. He's very
much a Jew and into being a Jew."
Or, despite the bar mitzvah and the Lubavitch
lessons, it may be worth remembering a line of his
from three decades back: "Don't follow leaders."
The boy who idolized Woody Guthrie and
the old-rime blues singers has now embarked on
a never-ending tour that has him playing one
night in three, year after year. He has chosen the
life of the roving musician over that of the mil-
lionaire rock star, giving credence to what he
told Newsweek two years ago:
"I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evange-
lists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs
than I've learned from any of this kind of entity.
The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs." pi
Lars x Yudelson is director . of Mishpacha:A
Virtual Community for Jewish Families and a
contributor to "The Bob Dylan Companion."
Ak
re Dylan's lyrics simply a
restating of 13th-century
Kabbalah? Can they be
understood without years
of Talmud study? Or is it all a hoax?
Let's explore possible references in
Dylan's lyrics to Jewish ideas or cus-
toms. Some are clearlyAbat, mean-
ing the obvious interpretation.
Others may be more farfetched.
Ours is but to argue, not to judge.
"Gates of Eden" (Bringing It All
Back Home, 1965)
The motorcycle black madonna
TWo-wheeled gyp)/ queen
And her silver-stUddedphantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to.sCream
As he weeps to wicked birds of prey'
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the
Gates of Eden
Christian folkies and bluesmen.
But I believe the Hebrew letters
on the album sleeve have a prophet-
ic voice, particularly in the early
months of 1974 in the wake of the
Yom Kippur War, particularly on a
record where the publishing rights
are assigned to Ram's Horn Music.
Dylan is here boldly including
the Jews — Joshua and Jacob —
with the rest of the canon of the
Western artists, the native. :
Americans, Buddha and Baudelaire.
It may not seem revolutionary, but
remember: This is less than a
decade after Einstein (the JeW) had
to disguise hirnself as Robin Hood
(the prototypiCal Ang1O-American . .
Planet Waves: liner notes (1974)
Back to the Starting Point! The
Kickoff, Hebrew Litters on
wall, Victor Hugo's house in Paris,
NYC in early -autumn,- leaves fly-,
-
ing in the park ...
... snapshots of pache poets search-
ing through the_ruins for a glimpse_
of Buddha — I lit out for parts
unknown, found Jacob's ladder up
against an adobe wall and bought
a serpent from a passing angel...
where Baudelaire lived and Goya
cashed in his chips, where Joshua
brought the house down!
Strictly speaking, these aren't
lyrics, and strictly speaking these
are not purely4. 044.;:refeteri„.
Because D-ylans Bible Was,- 3i least
at the beginning, the Bible of the
"Political World" (Oh' Mercy,
1989)
We live in a political . wor,
':Everything's hers and his
You can climb into the flame
And shout God's name
But youre not even sure what it is.
.
.
Bread crumb sins may be a ref-
erence to the tashlich ceremony.
The tashlich ceremony takes place
during the period of repentance
beginning with the.holy day of
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New
Year. Jews gather near a body - of
water (or a well, for the land-
locked), shake the-crumbs from
their pocket, and recite from the
Psalms and from the prophet
Micah: "Thou wilt again show us
mercy and subdue.our iniquitieS;
thou wilt cast all ol.rSins into the:-
depths of the sea' (i14ici,4h . .i19).
Then again, the bread-crtl-mb
sins could refer to the Passover holi-
day, when possession of bread —
even crumbs -- is banned. by
Jewish law.
This verse lies at the core of my
interpretation of this song.
In short: The setting sun
brings the end of one day and
starts the next.
The Sabbath begins and ends at.
nightfall. Jewish mysticism personi-
fies the Sabbath as a bride and
queen. She is welcomed in and
escorted out with special prayers: -
The parting prayers are called
Havdalah. Are they to no one? Ask
the Jokerman.
The Grammy Award-Winning
(.Time Out of Mind.
outlaw folk hero) to crash the party
on-Deso atibn Row
"Forever Young" (Planet haves,
1974) ,
May God bless and keep you
-
always....
May you . build a ladder to ther. stars
And climb on every-rUng
And may you stay forever yoUng
""May God bless and keep syou"
are the words : by which the cohan:-
the Jewish priests -- bless
irri-
the Jewish congregation — in _the
time of Moses (Numbers 626) and
today. The words have been incor-
poratedinto- every daily worship
service:An amulet with thesewords
has been found from the time of
the First Temple; parents still use
them to bless their children.
This song is widely assumed to
have been written for Dylan's son
Jakob. In the Bible, it was Jacob
(Israel) who dreamed of the ladder
whose top reached the heavens.
`0k.eirn.‘" (infidels-, 1983)'sj-.:-_,
So swiftly ihe sun sets in the sky"
You rise up and say goodbye to no one
There are two Jewish aspectsto
this Verse. First is the notion of
jumping into the flame. That was
the fate of the three prophets in'ihe
Book'OfDaniel— cast into the fieiy
furnace for their allegiance to God.
In Jewish tradition, however,
the first jump into the flame was
that of Abraham who, according
to legend, was cast into 'a fiery
furnace by Nimrod, ruler of Ur.
The p'shat explanation of "not
even sure what it is" is that Dylan
is lamenting that we are so far 7-
removed from God thar:even
want to throw ourselves into His
care, we don't know how to,
have forgotten God's name:
On the level of drash — a slightly
more convoluted interpretation —
this:is a reference to a literal Jewish
piedicament: We have forgotten the
literal name of God, the tetragram-
maton pronounced by the High
Priest in the Temple only on the
holiest day: ofthe year. All we have
are its consonants — YHVH --
but we don't know the vowels. (The
English translation Jehovah is only a
gueSs, and a wrong one at that.)
"Everything is Broken" (Oh
Mercy, 1989)
Here, the central metaphor is
profoundly Jewish. In kabbalistic
theology, the flaws in the world -_
reflect the "breaking of the ves-
sels." When. God began to create
the world, the Divine light proved
too powerful for the vessels that
were suppo$ed to contain it, and
they shattered. What we see
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Detroit Jewish News
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