"Liev Schreiber makes an astonishing
directorial debut."

Stephen Farber, MOVIELINE

Listen To The Words

A guide to Dylan's "Jewish" lyrics.

DON COHEN

Special to the Jewish News

W

hen you attend High
Holiday services this
year, look around.
Maybe you'll see Bob Dylan
joining the minyan.
The likelihood of a Dylan
spotting this Rosh Hashanah in
Metro Detroit is probably not
very high, but over the years
unsuspecting folks have sud-
denly found themselves daven-
ing with Dylan.
More likely is the experience
that when listening to his
music, you'll find yourself,
unsuspectingly, getting a lesson
in Jewish thought. You might
decide some of the following
interpretations are a stretch —
or not. But they'll make you
think, and that's a good thing.
It's a Dylan thing.

Now P l aying In celec t

"Gates of Eden" (Bringing It All Bob Dylan: "Tying to get to heaven before
Back Home, 1963): "Bread
they close the door."
crumb sins" sounds like the
Rosh Hashanah tashlich cere-
1981 destruction of Iraq's Osirak
mony of throwing bread crumbs into nuclear reactor.
a body of water to symbolically rid
Lyric: Every empire that's enslaved
ourselves of our sins. And, of course,
him is gone / Egypt and Rome, even
there's the Garden of Eden.
the great Babylon/ He's made a garden
Lyric: As he weeps to wicked birds of of paradise in the desert sand / In bed

prey / Who pick up on his bread crumb
sins / And there are no sins inside the
Gates of Eden

"Tryin' to Get to Heaven" (Time Out
of Mind, 1997): The Neilah service
comes at the end of Yom Kippur,
when God is said to have sealed the
Book of Life and closed the gates of
heaven for another year.
Lyric: Now you can seal up the book

and not write anymore / I've been
walking that lonesome valley / Trying
to get to heaven before they close the
door.

"Neighborhood Bully" (Infidels,
1983): This one is obvious. Dylan
reviews Jewish history, champions
Israel and slams anti-Semitism, all
while sarcastically referring to Israel
as a bully. He approvingly references
Israeli self-defense, including the

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on fire with the burning flesh of men /

LISTEN

To on page 56

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with nobody, under no one's command
/ He's the neighborhood bully /
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob/
he was criticized / Old women con-
demned him, said he should apologize
/ Then he destroyed a bomb fiectory,
nobody was glad/ The bombs were
meant for him / He was supposed to
feel bad/ He's the neighborhood bully.

"Death Is Not the End" (Down in
the Groove, 1988): Dylan uses both
imagery of Torah ("Tree of Life"), to
keep faith alive in dark times, and of
Abraham's search for the righteous of
Sodom and Gemorrah.
Lyric: Oh, the tree of life is growing

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